Egypt’s Al-Sisi: Field Marshal who Could Be Next President

Local Editor

Egypt's top military council said on Monday its commander Abdel Fattah al-Sisi should heed calls to stand in a presidential election.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said in a statement "the people's trust in al-Sisi is a call that must be heeded as the free choice of the people."
The statement said al-Sisi had thanked the military leadership for allowing him "the right to respond to the call of duty."

The presidential election is set to take place by mid-April, and will be followed by a parliamentary poll to restore democratic government by 2015, according to a new constitution.
The council earlier on Monday gave al-Sisi the green light to run for the presidency.
Al-Sisi, who will resign from the army to stand for office, is tipped to easily win a presidential election due to be held by mid-April, with no serious rivals.
Al-Sisi was promoted to the rank of field marshal, the highest in the military, Monday morning by the military-installed presidency.

"Interim president Adly Mansour issued a presidential decree promoting General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, minister of defense, to the rank of field marshal," said the statement.
The ecstatic cheers that greeted the announcement spoke volumes about Egypt's disenchantment with the clannish and tin-eared Muslim Brotherhood administration that al-Sisi sent packing. The adulation also demonstrated the comfort level of many ordinary Egyptians for being ruled by men in uniform.

In many countries where a military coup has taken place, the etiquette calls for a firm suggestion that the top brass, having performed a distasteful but necessary duty, leave the field of politics and "go back to their barracks." In Egypt, the cry being heard after al-Sisi's nomination was: "The military and the people are one hand."

It was heard in Tahrir Square almost three years ago to the day. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces, soon to be widely known by the scabrous-sounding acronym SCAF, issued Communique No. 1, a statement supporting the "legitimate demands" of protesters demanding the removal then of Hosni Mubarak as President.

Like Anwar Sadat before him, and Gamal Abdel Nasser before Sadat, Mubarak was a military man. "You know, we've always had the military running things," a liberal activist told me on the banks of the Nile, shortly after Mursi had been removed. "It's as much a part of Egypt as the Nile."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team