Security Bloc Meltdown: Elections, Elites, and Infighting
Egypt Security Sector Report
This week’s issue tracks the regime’s sharpest internal rupture in years, as the parliamentary elections expose open conflict between Homeland Security, the General Intelligence Service (GIS), and rival loyalist blocs. It also unpacks Sisi’s latest Police Academy performance, where he scolds recruits on poverty and defends subsidy cuts while the economy sinks. Plus, updates on BCG’s renewed courting of Cairo despite its Gaza scandal, the Dabaa nuclear showmanship with Putin, the Air Force’s expanding business empire, prison deaths, and the continuing surge of Egyptian migrants reaching Italy.
Electoral Drama
The parliamentary elections have erupted into the sharpest internal crisis the regime has faced in years. Mada Masr’s investigation shows the rupture is driven by a confrontation inside the ruling coalition, not by any opposition challenge. Sisi’s surprise intervention shattered the official narrative. A day after the Ministry of Interior (MOI) insisted that all reported violations were fabricated, the presidency publicly acknowledged major irregularities and ordered the National Elections Authority (NEA) to review the entire first phase, even if it required partial or total annulment.
The order forced the NEA to reverse its earlier denials and void the results in 19 constituencies across seven governorates, representing a quarter of all individual-seat districts. Data from Saheeh Masr reveals why the shock reverberated through the regime’s core. The Nation’s Future Party, backed by the MOI’s Homeland Security, is the biggest loser. Several of its candidates had already declared victory or were heading to runoffs before the results were cancelled.
A parallel media rivalry has also been unfolding inside the GIS-run United Media Services, whose channels have been instructed to amplify the Military Intelligence-backed Homeland Defenders and the GIS-backed National Front, while sidelining Nation’s Future.
According to well-placed sources cited by Zawya 3, Homeland Security summoned several candidates from the most contentious districts over the past two days to discuss possible reruns and secure commitments that they would re-enter the race if ordered. The same scenario reportedly applied to former MP Nashwa el-Deeb, who deleted her withdrawal video and signaled readiness to run again after the president’s statement. The sources add that Homeland Security’s heavy-handed control over the process angered rival state-backed candidates, feeding internal regime tensions and prompting the presidency’s intervention to contain growing public backlash.
Several candidates, all regime loyalists, have declared their withdrawal, including heavyweights such as former judge Mohamed Selim and former Giza Security Director (Police) Maj. Gen. Kamal el-Daly—both also resigned from the National Front.
Zawya 3 bluntly describes the first voting round as a “battle” between “Homeland Security candidates and GIS candidates.” Mada Masr situates this turmoil within a deeper power struggle between two state-aligned camps: the Homeland Security machinery and the GIS, which has been pushing for “fresh blood” after Nation’s Future’s declining credibility. With constitutional amendments looming, these blocs are battling over who will dominate the next parliament.
The latest indicator of fragmentation comes from the judiciary itself. The Judges Club issued a stiff statement on 19 November, stressing that neither judges nor prosecutors supervised the parliamentary elections at all, implicitly distancing the judiciary from the chaos and praising the presidency for correcting course. Hours later, the Administrative Prosecution Club released a sharply worded rebuttal, accusing the NEA of negligence, logistical failures, and procedural violations. It condemned the NEA’s attempt to shift blame onto the Administrative Prosecution, recounting how many members were left without transport, accommodation, or basic preparations for their assigned polling stations. The statement defends its members’ integrity, decries systemic failures, and bluntly rejects any effort to scapegoat them.
These dueling statements expose fractures inside yet another arm of the state, adding the judiciary to the widening landscape of competing security, media, and administrative factions now openly clashing over the election fallout.
Sisi’s intervention reflects concern about the divisions inside his own support base and the declining ability of loyalist networks to mobilize voters. Contrary to his predecessors, Sisi had sought—and succeeded in—unifying the security sector following the 2013 coup, to face the dominant perceived threat of popular unrest. However, it is unclear how durable this unity could last, as the economy crumbles, discontent rises, and the regime’s popularity and legitimacy have hit rock bottom.
🎧 Listen: The Cracks Beneath the Uniform
Sisi’s Annual Audition: Where Young Recruits Learn That Poverty Is a Moral Failure, Not Policy
