Rococo convention center, huge towers modeled on Dubai’s skyscrapers, majestic opera house: the “new capital” of Egypt emerges from the sands 50 kilometers from the center of Cairo, a pharaonic project wanted by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Alternating with portraits of the raïs, signs along the road indicate the “new capital” : construction sites as far as the eye can see in the middle of the desert just 25 kilometers from the Fifth Settlement, one of the last born of the select suburbs of Cairo. In 2019, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi had inaugurated a vast mosque, named “al-Fattah al-Alim”, one of the names of God in Islam, but also the first name of the Egyptian president, and a Coptic cathedral, a carbon copy of its twin inaugurated more than half a century ago in Cairo.
“New Republic”
Parliament, ministries or upscale neighborhoods for which promoters have been canvassing Cairenes for months by telephone, or at low rent designed by the Ministry of Housing, are emerging. Faculties, hospitals and schools are still under construction, while the inauguration scheduled for June 30 has been postponed, in particular because of the Covid-19 epidemic. This date is symbolic for power because that day, eight years ago, a huge crowd gave “mandate” to the army against the then Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, overthrown shortly after by Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. The inauguration, the new date of which remains unknown, will act, according to the Egyptian president, “new Republic” launched in his first election in 2014. Shortly after, he announced that he wanted a new capital, instead of Cairo, a sprawling city of more than 20 million inhabitants with immense architectural wealth, as evidenced by the Ibn Touloun mosque , over a millennium old.
“Enigma”
But for Galila el-Kadi, urban planner of the French-based Institute for Research for Development, this new capital does not compete with Cairo, as Brasilia was able to do with Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, but extend a little more a megalopolis already congested. The strategy behind this new capital is “a riddle”, believes this university professor.
“Even before being inhabited, it already touches Cairo. In a few years, it will expand and be completely absorbed and this will only add to the problems of managing a high concentration of population in an even larger area. big.”
Galila el-Kadi, town plannerto AFP
Mr. Sissi has already initiated new towns, such as Mansoura (north) or Aswan (south), but the one that is currently called “the new administrative capital” is “the biggest project of the state”, told AFP Khaled al-Husseini, spokesperson for the public company responsible for its construction. The 730 square kilometer site (the equivalent of seven times Paris) is to be built in three stages, including “the first covers 250 km² which will be able to accommodate two million Egyptians”, details Mr. Husseini. Civil servants will come to work there in December and there will be 100,000 in all “within three years”, assure Khaled al-Husseini. For them, “we had to create a road network and provide means of transport”, including a monorail train costing nearly four billion euros to link the new capital to Cairo, known for its monster traffic jams.
“Where are the priorities?”
A profusion of resources that exasperates more than one while a third of the 102 million Egyptians live below the poverty line. “It’s a certain vision of modernization” in the West, deplores the political scientist Moustafa Kamal al-Sayyed, who wonders: would not modernize Egypt rather go through “guarantee a quality education” in a country where illiteracy affects nearly one in three inhabitants. Recently, he notes, the Ministry of Education said “lack of 250,000 teachers”. “Where are the priorities?” In Egypt, underlines Ms. Kadi, since the Pharaonic times, the construction of new capitals had as a motivation “to separate the sovereign from the people”, she recalls.
“All the presidents of modern Egypt wanted to imprint their name in history like Gamal Abdel Nasser with the Aswan High Dam. Mr. Sisi wants history to remember him as the one who shifted the center of power. And this, forever. “
Moustafa Kamal al-Sayyed, political scientistto AFP