Sisi promises better life in Egypt in 2 years, though street kids may need longer

Egyptians will enjoy better lives within the first two years of his presidency, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised in the second televised interview of his presidential campaign.

Zeina Yazgy spoke to the former army chief for the “Besaraha” (Honestly) talk show on the Sky News Arabia satellite channel.

Sisi’s first interview, a prerecorded marathon aired over two nights last Monday and Tuesday on the private satellite channels CBC and ONTv, unsurprisingly elicited a wide range of conflicting responses from a deeply polarized viewership.

On Sunday night, the 59-year-old continued to present the main points of his presidential campaign, albeit with the same vague terminology of last week. While he promised that living conditions would quickly improve under his administration, Sisi also cautioned that “bigger problems, like street children, may need longer.”

Sisi continued on a main thread from last week’s interview, in which he affirmed that “there will be nothing called the Muslim Brotherhood during my tenure.” This time, he further explained that the banned Islamist organization does not blend into the general fabric of Egyptian society. While Sisi averred his respect for the convictions of others, no one has the right to impose their convictions on those who believed differently, he insisted.

"The Muslim Brotherhood turned a political conflict into a religious one … we have shattered the humility of Islam," Sisi claimed, but went on to assure that he would rescue both Egypt and Islam from the Brotherhood's erred ways.

The decision to remove former President Mohamed Morsi from power in response to the mass protests that swept the nation on June 30 calling for the Islamist ruler's resignation was “a purely Egyptian decision” that was not discussed with any foreign entities, Sisi promised.

In Sisi’s case, though, he wouldn’t wait for the people to take to the streets against him before he would take steps to address their demands. The Armed Forces act according to the Egyptian people’s will, he declared, and nothing else.

Sisi has been widely expected to sweep the polls in the upcoming election, with the first round of voting slated to begin on May 26-27. His campaign claimed to have garnered close to half a million endorsement signatures from across the country supporting a Sisi presidency, several times more than the number accrued by his main contender, Nasserist-oriented politician Hamdeen Sabbahi.

However, after both candidates appeared on television over the past week, a poll conducted by the privately owned newspaper Al-Watan showed a narrower margin of victory, with Sisi leading Sabbahi by 4 percent.