NEW PRESIDENT OF THE OLD SCHOOL

The results of voting in the extraordinary presidential elections in Egypt did not bring any surprises. According to preliminary data, more than 93 per cent of the voters supported the representative of the military elite, Field Marshal AbdelFattah Elsisi, who is considered to be a guarantor of stability in Egyptian society. The field marshal's only opponent, socialist Hamdeen Sabahi, had to settle for a very modest result - about 3 per cent. It is obvious that even after the announcement of the official results of the vote the situation will not change drastically. In this respect, no surprises expect Elsisi and his supporters who welcomed preliminary election results on the streets of Cairo elections with exaltation.

But the voters who ignored the elections gave them a rather unpleasant surprise. According to the Supreme Election Commission (SEC) of the country, fewer than 50 per cent of the total electorate turned out to vote. Even the unprecedented steps taken by the SEC to raise the turnout in the elections yielded no tangible results. In particular, the government announced 27 May (the second day of voting) a holiday in government offices and provided free public transport, and by the decision of the SEC the voting process was extended for one more day. In addition, it was announced that citizens who did not turn out in the elections would face a fine of about 71 dollars in accordance with Egypt's electoral law. The SEC explained the low turnout by the heat in the daytime and by the no-show of hundreds of thousands of citizens who came to the capital from the provinces and had no absentee ballots. According to a survey conducted by the Internet portal Al-Wafd, the main reasons for the low turnout in fact lie in the apathy of the Egyptians caused by a large number of elections and referendums in the past few years. Besides, the majority of voters believe that the outcome of the election was a foregone conclusion, and the nomination of Sabahi was only aimed at ensuring the involvement of an alternative candidate. It is noteworthy that representatives of the campaign headquarters of both candidates opposed the SEC decision to extend the voting for another day. Supporters of Sabahi described this step of the commission as pressure on voters and an attempt to falsify the results of the polls. They also accused the authorities of obstructing the work of observers at polling stations and reported arrests of their representatives. By the way, the voting process was monitored by about 80 local non-governmental organizations and 150 observers from the European Union. The campaign headquarters of al-Sisi were also against extending the election, but the electoral commission rejected the protests from both candidates' headquarters.

As a result, Egypt acquired a new president from the old army school - Field Marshal al-Sisi, who is very popular among citizens of the most populous country of the Arab world.

But opponents and mainly the Muslim Brotherhood accuse him of a coup and terror, which resulted in the deaths of about a thousand of their companions and in the imprisonment of the former Islamist leadership of the country. Another serious blow to the Islamists was the verdict of the court of the Egyptian province of Minya, which sentenced 683 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood to death in late April. In order to completely demoralize and crush the radical Islamists in the country, the military authorities, on the basis of relevant provisions of the new Constitution adopted in January of this year, banned the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and recognized it as a terrorist organization. The "brothers" also met a similar fate in some neighbouring Arab countries and Russia.

Moreover, in an interview with Egyptian state television during the presidential race, Elsisi assured the public that if he wins the presidential election, the Muslim Brotherhood will never be reborn as an organization. It is symptomatic that his opponent Sabahi spoke in the same spirit about radical Islamists. The key campaign promise of the field marshal was the speedy restoration of stability in the country, which has been in a zone of turbulence in the past three years. During this time, several thousand people were killed in bloody clashes and riots.

According to some experts, along with his tough policy in establishing political stability, al-Sisi will resort to a policy of "carrot", trying to secure reconciliation between various political forces. And to a certain extent, it can be extended to supporters of former President Muhammad Morsi. For example, on 21 May an Egyptian court jailed 155 Islamists, 50 of whom were convicted for life. But the day before, the Egyptian judiciary acquitted 169 supporters of Morsi accused of involvement in the riots in Cairo in August last year.

To justify the high hopes of the population, the field marshal and his team will have to do a painstaking job in the economic sphere because the effects of the "Arab Spring" have halved the already "thin" international reserves of Egypt, while the economy is experiencing a downturn. The country's economy is facing a budget deficit of 14 per cent of GDP. The external debt has reached 45.8bn dollars. In order to improve the situation, the government intends to pour about 5bn dollars into the economy, which Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE are ready to provide. And it will be the second "stimulus package" after the ouster of the Islamists in Egypt.

As for the country's foreign policy, the military elite represented by al-Sisi abandons the policy of "all your eggs in one basket". A vivid example is the intensification of contacts between Cairo and Moscow. The field marshal paid his first foreign visit as defence minister to the Russian capital, during which contracts in the field of military-technical cooperation worth no less than 3bn dollars were signed. In addition, Egypt is also one of the largest importers of Russian grain crops. In particular, last year Russia exported more than 700,000 tonnes of wheat to this country. This turn of Cairo towards Moscow is dictated to some extent by the fact that Egypt's traditional partner - the United States - is using the freeze on regular military aid (1.3bn a year) as a tool for political pressure. Apparently, Cairo no longer wishes to completely depend on the mood in the White House and US Congress. But this does not mean that Elsisi plans to burn all bridges in relations with Washington. The United States, which constantly criticizes Egypt's military authorities, has already decided to supply 10 Apache military helicopters to this country.

It is also possible that Washington will fully revive annual military and financial assistance to Cairo in order not to cede its positions to Moscow. Besides, this is required by the interests of the US strategic ally - Israel, especially after the two leading political parties of the Palestinian Authority - Hamas and Fatah - announced joint efforts against the background of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, which is a serious blow to Tel Aviv. In this context, the importance of Cairo, which does not dispute the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979 signed in Washington by the then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (incidentally, also a representative of the military elite), acquires a special meaning for the US and Israel - even if Elsisi wins with support from less than half the population.