Abdel Fattah Al Sisi is no Gamal Abdel Nasser

Although many tried to find similarities in between the two men, Sisi resembles more Anwar Sadat than Abdel Nasser. 

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly been compared to former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, but his own words suggest that the late president Anwar al-Sadat – who won popularity early in his tenure but ended his life unpopular and resented – may be the more instructive comparison. 

In the first of Sisi's televised interviews, he was asked if he saw himself as a new Nasser.
"I wish I was like Nasser," he replied. "Nasser was not, for Egyptians, just a portrait on walls but a photo and voice carved in their hearts."

It was an understandable question to ask. In the Egyptian press, Sisi has been repeatedly compared in laudatory and glowing terms to the charismatic leader of the Free Officers, who brought British colonial rule to an end in 1952.
 
The foreign and English-language press has also published numerous articles analyzing the comparison, always in more critical terms. Several noted that Sisi lacks both the intention and the economic resources to deliver drastic improvements to the lives of the poor through redistribution.
 
"If he were to undertake the sort of sweeping reforms of his predecessor, it would require seizing assets not just from wealthy landowners, but from the military itself. For this reason, his instincts have so far tended to be conservative -- not revolutionary," Max Strasser wrote in Foreign Policy.
 
It is, however, odd that the most popular point of comparison for Sisi is Nasser at all. Nasser's successor, Anwar al-Sadat, is a far better analogy – not least because it is Sadat with whom Sisi, in his unguarded moments, has shown himself to be preoccupied.
 
Sadat is mentioned by Sisi at least three times in the leaked material which has emerged since June last year, in terms which indicate both personal admiration and political affinity. 
 
By contrast, Nasser is not mentioned once: Sisi might find the comparison flattering or useful when it is proffered, but there is no evidence that he personally relishes it.

It is the economic challenges which Sadat faced, and which festered unsolved for the 30 years of Mubarak's rule, and the responses to those challenges which most clearly link Sadat and Sisi.
 
In his thesis, entitled "Democracy in the Middle East," written while a student at the United States War College in 2006 and leaked online last year, Sisi wrote with concern about Egypt's weakness under Mubarak, while also praising reforms instituted by Sadat. 
 
"The overall economic system is weak and does not provide an incentive for the population to pursue education. Excessive government controls and bloated public payrolls stifle individual initiative and tends to solidify the power base of ruling political parties. In Egypt, under President Sadat, government controls were lifted in an effort to stimulate economic growth; however, these efforts have not blossomed under President Mubarak."

Why is the Sadat comparison not common? Probably because, although there are undoubtedly Sadat fans amongst Egyptians, he is far less popular than Nasser. Sadat presided over a decade in which the slowing world economy and mounting domestic troubles led to rising prices and an erosion of the rising standard of living and, for many, hopefulness that was Nasser's bequest.