CAIRO — On one smoldering July weekend that also happened to be during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Egypt's regime, led by military strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, announced that it was reducing fuel subsidies. The decision sent waves of anger through the poor — and poorer classes of the country — still suffering through the political and security turmoil the nation has been undergoing since the January 2011 revolution.

When the subsidies were reduced, middle-class workers screamed, taxi drivers frowned and memories of Anwar Sadat's 1977 bread riots were discussed at tea shops that already had raised the prices of their top selling products: tea, coffee and water-pipe tobacco. But the next day, lines at every gas station across the country seemed as normal as ever, except for some loud drivers who also slipped back into fearful silence after noticing that their screams — unlike those made during the 3½ years before Sisi's presidency — had ceased to echo in the ears of others.

"It's not surprising, the regime seems to have strategized how to secure and pass its decision before it even finalized drafting it," a state-owned gas station manager told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

"Those two gates were manned by police vehicles and their armed personnel," he added, pointing to the massive entrances of the station opening on a main Cairo artery. "The police convoy arrived a couple of hours before the decision was put into effect. The officer told me not to worry, no one will dare to protest. And no one did."