Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi was sworn in on Tuesday before parliament for his third term in office as leader of the Arab world’s most populous country.
Speaking at the new parliament building, Sisi highlighted the challenges Egypt had withstood in recent years while he promised continued development, from which many Egyptians say they feel excluded.
“The past few years have shown that the path of nation-building is not paved with roses … between terrorist attempts at home, sudden global crises abroad, fierce wars around us,” Sisi told lawmakers and religious, government, and military officials.
Sisi swept to victory in an election last December with 89.6 percent of the vote and no serious challengers.
In his speech, Sisi promised increased spending on programs targeting the poor and engaging the private sector in line with commitments that helped secure last month’s expanded $8 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund.
The head of the parliamentary bloc of the Social Democratic Party, Ihab Mansour, said that there was wide agreement on the issues the president raised but the main challenge lay in turning the plans into reality. He added that “talk about maximizing resources is not new. Still, we have yet to see the government provide the required support for farmers to pre-empt the outbreak of acute crises in rice and wheat production.”
He won 89.6% of the vote in the December election, with a turnout of 66.8% more than 67 million registered voters. He ran against three virtually unknown opponents.
El-Sissi overthrew democratically elected Islamist Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and proceeded to win his first election the following year.
He was reelected in 2018. A year later, constitutional amendments, passed in a general referendum, added two years to el-Sissi’s second term, and allowed him to run for a third, six-year term.
