It is within this context that political scientist Nadine Abdalla will highlight the factors which explain the current stagnation in Egypt’s transition process. This researcher maintains that the constant failure of the political elites to reach a political agreement and form an inclusive framework is one of the main barriers against Egypt’s advancement towards a more democratic order. According to Abdalla, this failure is more attributable to a series of mistaken strategic decisions reached by these elites than to structural conditions. She will also be discussing the main challenges faced by the Egyptian transformation and outline potential future scenarios for its development.

As for Spanish journalist Ricard González, he will also be dealing with the challenges faced by Abdelfattah al-Sisi’s government and will address whether it is being designed as a new autocracy, with similar reactions and balances of power to those in the Mubarak regime. Though this new regime appears to have consolidated, we have yet to see whether it will be able to surmount the formidable challenges that are yet to come. The greatest will be economic. Another big question is what its relationship with political Islamism will be like in the future, above all with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Nadine Abdallah is a non-resident member of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin and an associate researcher in the Arab Forum for Alternatives (AFA) in Cairo. She holds a doctorate in Political Science earned in Grenoble, France, and a Master’s degree in International Relations from Sciences-Po Paris. She has worked with several Egyptian and European think-tanks and research centers, including the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS) and the Study and Research Center for the Arab and Mediterranean World (CERMAM) in Geneva. Her fields of research include social movements, labor movements and youth movements, as well as social and political change in Egypt. She also writes a weekly column in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Ricard González is a journalist and political scientist.  Passionate about the Middle East, its cultures, history and politics, he completed a Master’s degree specializing in this region at Johns Hopkins University. He worked as a correspondent in Washington for six years.  For more than three years, his base of operations has been Cairo, where he has collaborated with the newspapers El País, La Nación and La Tercera. He is the author of the book “Ascenso y caída de los Hermanos Musulmanes” (“Rise and Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood”).