EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT ABDEL-Fattah el-Sissi is facing criticism after a massive red carpet was laid over public roads for his motorcade during a trip to open a social housing project in a Cairo suburb.
Images of the giant red carpet prompted a wave of ridicule on social media, with a hashtag mocking the carpet trending in Arabic. A local newspaper devoted much of its front page today to the incident.
“How is the president asking us to tighten our belts while the four kilometre red carpet says otherwise?” read a headline in Al-Maqal newspaper, whose editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Eissa, is one of Egypt’s most prominent TV commentators.
El-Sissi, who as military chief led the overthrow of an elected Islamist leader in 2013, has staked his legitimacy on reviving the economy after years of unrest, including by trimming costly state subsidies, a theme he touched upon at the event.
He said the state spends around €51.5 million a day to provide clean water, with only part of the cost passed on to consumers.
“One (cubic) metre of water that reaches you costs me this much, and you are taking it by that much, and the state is unable to continue this way,” el-Sissi said in a televised conference.
The military provided a rare public response to the furore over the carpet. Brigadier General Ehab el-Ahwagy explained on several talk shows following the event that the carpet was not purchased by el-Sissi’s administration and had been used for more than three years on similar occasions.
“It gives a kind of joy and assurance to the Egyptian citizen that our people and our land and our armed forces are always capable of organising anything in a proper manner,” el-Ahwagy told prominent TV talk show host Amr Adeeb.
It is laid out in a way to beautify the general area, so it gives a good impression of the celebration that is being broadcast to the whole world.
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