Euroviews. In Egypt, al-Sisi’s reelection is a replay of his first bid for power

Little surprise surrounded the recent elections in Egypt, where the incumbent President and former Defence Minister Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi swept to power with a reported 89.6% of the vote. 

While al-Sisi ran on a host of promises, including plans to lift Egypt out of its ongoing economic crisis, the geopolitics of the wars in Ukraine and Palestine coloured the election in ways that were also unsurprising.

“Down with Israel. No displacement or rehoming," was the chant attributed to “angry protests in all Egyptian governorates,” according to Egypt Today, one of the country’s semi-official English-language news outlets.

In advance of an 18 October meeting with US President Joe Biden, al-Sisi declared: "What is happening now in Gaza is an attempt to force civilian residents to take refugee and migrate to Egypt, which should not be accepted.”

Mystery surrounded the origins of the claim, which, in the brutal displacement south of Egypt’s besieged neighbours, appeared virtually self-evident.

But on 23 October, the Russian-state news behemoth, RT Arabic, provided a credible source for the rumour. A right-wing think tank with ties to the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence had published a white paper alluding to the plot that was now materialising on the ground. 

In typical propagandist fashion, the RT story replicated across dozens of affiliated websites within the Russo-Arabic media sphere as well as other major Arabic satellite networks. 

The convenient factor that none of the syndicating sources attributed their findings to the original RT item lent credence to the appearance of consensus. 

Ostensible vindication of the information, also promulgated one week later by the Israeli outlet Local Call which disclosed a separate, leaked