After winning a full term, Sabahi named his key ally and fellow Egyptian [Alaa Al Aswany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaa_Al_Aswany) vice president and [Mohamed Brahmi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Brahmi), a Tunisian, prime minister, keeping the government of the UAR Egyptian-dominated despite the growing power of other regions. Egyptian dominance was not the UAR's only problem, as corruption and police brutality also made the regime increasingly unpopular. 

Consequently, in August 2023, mass protests coordinated via the internet broke out against Sabahi's administration, which repressed the protests, killing 357 Arabians and injuring 1,579. But the ASU co-opted some of the protestors' demands and removed many corrupt officeholders, replacing them with younger and fresher cadres.

As a pro-worker left-wing populist, Sabahi adopted a more populist persona than his predecessors, always starting his speeches with the phrase "workers of Arabia" and repealing the 1990s reduction of workers' rights laws. This made him popular with working class Arabians, but the growing middle class increasingly resented the regime. 

Furthermore, the ASU's refusal to turn the UAR into a post-industrial society made the UAR increasingly fall behind the United States, China and Russia, all of whom are moving in this direction. For instance, Sabahi banned the construction of data centers in UAR territory, depriving the country of a key technological innovation. 

Sabahi's government has still invested into AI, as all great powers did, but this investment ranks as the fifth-largest in the world (by comparison, the UAR is the third largest country). All of these factors have made Sabahi less popular than his four predecessors, who are viewed as more in touch with their times than Sabahi.  

On 18 April 2024, Sabahi deployed Arabian troops to the Central African Republic in order to support the Central African government against former president François Bozizé's Democratic Liberation Front (FLD) rebels. Commanded by [Abdul Karim Mahmoud Ibrahim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Karim_Mahmoud_Ibrahim), this intervention force has done worse than previous UAR ones, and has suffered 3,000 casualties as of September 2026, but it's not being blown out of the water either. 

Despite these problems, roughly one-third of the Arabian population strongly supports Sabahi while another third tolerates his government, with only 30–32% of Arabians disagreeing with him, which, alongside the fact Arabia has nukes, makes it unlikely he will be overthrown. It is speculated that Sabahi favours his 45 year old daughter [Salma ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salma_Sabahi) to succeed him. 

Glory of the Arabs | Hamdeen Sabahi (born 1954)