Can the president cure Egypt’s economic ailments before voters decide they have had enough of austerity?

Can the president cure Egypt’s economic ailments before voters decide they have hadenough of austerity? By adopting economic measures that “that none of his predecessors dared execute,” President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is making “a risky bet on the healing power of economic pain,” writes The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov (paywall). “As savings erode and consumer buying-power shrinks, Mr. Sisi [expects] that the expected payoff — new jobs, foreign investment and growth — will arrive before the economic pain risks another social explosion in Egypt.” Complaints are loud from voices in the streets, Trofimov says, but fear of chaos, such as that gripping neighbors like Syria and Iraq, is making El Sisi’s economic reform efforts “more palatable” and thus likely to succeed.