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The nation’s airwaves were dominated by pre-election day coverage last night, with all the talking heads giving their final previews ahead of polling stations opening today. The hosts of Kelma Akhira (watch, runtime: 22:51),El Hekaya (watch, runtime: 1:11 | 1:45), Masaa DMC (watch, runtime: 3:58), Al Hayah Al Youm (watch, runtime: 7:56), and Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime: 5:58) all dedicated significant airtime to the three-day vote.
Elsewhere, Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi had some potentially crucial updates on our IMF loan, and the war on Gaza continued to get coverage.
The IMF could quadruple our USD 3 bn loan: That’s according to El Hadidi, who claimed to have been told by unnamed sources that authorities are in talks with the Fund over potentially raising the value of the loan to USD 10-12 bn (watch, runtime: 5:13).
That’s (a lot) more than we expected:Bloomberg is so far the only news outlet to have given a potential figure, reporting in October that the Fund could add another USD 2+ bn to the existing program, taking it beyond USD 5 bn.
We need a long-term solution to our debt problem: Appearing on Kelma Akhira, economist Medhat Nafei said that the current regional turmoil could “give us a good chance to reach long-term solutions for our debt problem,” and that the IMF could help to restructure our sovereign debt in a way that doesn’t impact our credit rating. “Debt restructuring has to be carried out and facilitated by the IMF to avoid [hurting our credit rating],” Nafei said (watch, runtime: 5:03).
What to expect when the CBE meets next week: The Monetary Policy Committee will likely hike interest rates when it meets on 21 December, El Hadidi said, citing the IMF’s call for a combination of tighter monetary policy and a more flexible exchange rate as a solution to the country’s economic woes. Masaa DMC’s Osama Kamel also had coverage (watch, runtime: 3:56).
The war on Gaza also got coverage:El Hekaya’s Amr Adib conducted an interview with a journalist in Gaza for updates on the situation on the ground (watch, runtime: 11:54) while Masaa DMC’s Kamel condemned the US’ decision to veto the ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council on Friday (watch, runtime: 3:58). Ala Mas’ouleety’s Ahmed Moussa lauded UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s attempt to bring about a ceasefire at the council (watch, runtime: 4:32).
