Sabbahi reps stood up by Sisi envoys in TV debate, as Sisi plane takes off

Representatives from Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s presidential campaign failed to show up to a planned televised debate with their opposition on Thursday evening, forcing the debate to be canceled, reported the privately owned newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm (AMAY).

Television presenter Tony Khalife invited two spokespeople from the Sisi campaign to debate Hossam Moannis and Ahmed Kamel, representatives of Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi’s presidential campaign, on the privately owned channel Al-Qahera wal Nas. The conversation was to be moderated by an AMAY journalist, according to the paper. 

Sabbahi is Sisi’s main contender in the upcoming polls, slated to commence on May 26.

While Moannis and Kamel arrived on time for the debate and waited for over an hour, Khalife was ultimately impelled to cancel the debate when Sisi’s representatives didn’t show up, as the studio was needed by another program.

Moannis wrote on Twitter that one of the Sisi campaign representatives would not respond to phone calls or emails, while the other said he was stuck in traffic.

According to the privately owned ONews Agency (ONA), the two emissaries from Sisi’s side were Mahmoud Badr and Tarek al-Kholy, both members of the campaign’s youth committee.

It is not possible to speak with or appear alongside the rival campaign, Badr declared in a statement on his Facebook page, “because they only speak the language of treason and insults. Apart from a few exceptions, they need to learn the ethics of dialogue,” the agency reported.

Badr is co-founder of Tamarod (Rebel), a grassroots initiative that spearheaded the signature campaign against former President Mohamed Morsi and paved the way for the military's ouster of the Islamist leader.

Kholy, on the other hand, apologized for his absence, citing traffic delays and the lack of a private car to take him to the studio. 

Also on Thursday, a plane bearing a picture of the 59-year-old field marshal flew from Cairo to Sohag in Upper Egypt, throwing thousands of pictures of Sisi and flags of Egypt along the way.