• 11:55
  • Friday ,20 November 2015
العربية

Elections and the Bank’s Interest: What a contradiction!

Magdy Malak

Article Of The Day

23:11

Friday ,20 November 2015

Elections and the Bank’s Interest: What a contradiction!
There are two events that have happened recently in Egypt. These two events are completely related, but at the same time, are contradicting.
 
The first event was the first phase of the parliamentary elections in which the participation reached to barely 12%, and if we compare this percent with the parliamentary elections in 2011, we will find a big difference. This indicates to me that the Egyptians are not satisfied and don’t believe in the political process any more.
 
We should close our eyes, and mediate on that fact and we should be honest in our analysis for that event. I read many articles trying to interpret the results by saying this percentage is normal even in the democratic countries, but unfortunately they are trying to deceive society by not being honest. 
 
The second event I want to focus on is the bank’s interest rate which was announced 2 weeks ago. The interest rates have been raised on a 3 year certificate to reach 12.5%. I don’t know if this is only by chance that the two numbers are close to each other. The percent of people participating in the elections was “between” 12% to 13 % and the interest rate on the 3 year certificate is 12.5 %. 
 
The percent of participating in the parliament elections was 12%, but after the Bank released some statistics about how many people purchased the bank certificate with 12% interest rate, we will find out that more than 20 million purchased the certificate and the banks collected more than $50 billion Pounds in 2 weeks.