Egypt’s President Sisi Touts Megaprojects Ahead of March Vote

Pharaonic infrastructure initiatives, including a bigger Suez Canal, are doing little to defuse discontent

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CAIRO—For decades Egypt’s presidents, like the pharaohs before them, have used vast infrastructure projects to inspire a sense of national achievement and economic might. But no modern leader has claimed to launch so many in so short a time as current President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, however meager their actual impact.

Since the former general came to power following a military coup in 2013, he has decreed the expansion of Egypt’s Suez Canal, ordered a second capital city be built next to Cairo, and initiated a scheme to...