When Time magazine named Pope Francis its person of the year, most of the resulting debate centred on whether the whistleblower Edward Snowden should have won instead. But in Egypt, the outrage was of a different nature. In the eyes of his supporters, Egypt’s army chief General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, who overthrew Mohamed Morsi this summer, has been robbed of his rightful title.
Their fury stems from Sissi’s victory in a readers’ poll on Time’s website – an informal ballot that allowed people to vote multiple times, and which has no bearing on Time’s editors’ final decision.
But few Sissi’s supporters seemed to grasp the poll’s insignificance. Egyptian media outlets loudly encouraged readers to vote for Sisi in the online poll. Egyptian diplomats proudly circulated the news of his eventual victory to foreign journalists – delighted to have what they may have seen as cast-iron evidence of Sissi’s respectability outside of Egypt, and popularity inside of it. Posters and banners supporting Sissi are visible in many Egyptian streets – but a Zogby poll from September suggested Egypt may be more split about Sissi than was previously assumed.
So when Time later announced that Sissi had failed not only to win the actual title but to make even the shortlist, it came as a hammer-blow to his backers. According to al-Dostor newspaper, a strongly pro-army broadsheet, Time’s decision “stank of political bias”. A hackers’ collective threatened to hijack Time’s website in revenge, reported another news service.
For Refaei Nasrallah, the leader of a campaign calling on Sissi to run for president, the slight must have been the result of highest-level political interference. The US government itself must have told Time to snub Sissi, he reckoned, because it is in league with Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
For Sisi’s critics, the outrage was ironic. Sisi’s backers had little time for Morsi’s claims to democratic legitimacy when they came to the streets in their millions in July, calling for his overthrow. Democracy was not just about elections, they said – though their fury six months on suggests it is nevertheless all about online polls.
For Sissi himself, the blow may have been cushioned by the fact he knew about it in advance – it emerged this week that the general believes he occasionally has the ability to predict the future. In a leaked and unverified recording of an off-the-record conversation with a journalist, Sissi– or a very good impersonator of his voice – said his dreams had predicted future events for more than 35 years. Among other odd visions, he said he once dreamed he met Egypt’s former president, Anwar Sadat, and told him that he would be president one day. He also says he dreamed that he carried a sword bearing the words “there is no god but Allah” written in red, and confirmed to his interlocutor that he harboured presidential ambitions outside of his visions.
The video has not been verified, but it is widely thought to be the latest leak from a recording of a four-hour interview Sissi gave this summer to the editor of a major Egyptian daily. Pro-Morsi groups claim to have secured a copy of the recording, and have been steadily leaking unused excerpts from the interview since the summer.
Source: The Guardian
