What is required of him is to learn how to govern the people while on the job. This is imperative for the people to understand and to exercise appropriate patience and give him breathing space to discover who his supporters and who his detractors are both within and outside the land. He has an enormous amount of goodwill, which he must not squander. To promise the people the heavens and fail to deliver even a few stars would be catastrophic and hand one of his avowed enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a sword to cut him up and the people too into chunks of disparate, discordant masses.
To think that President Al-Sisi was not planning this outcome since July 3 may be dissimulation. Then, we conclude that he has already planned the different moves towards this outcome and beyond. We all hope that he has done his homework and has a viable plan to act on once sworn in. If indeed he has not and is playing ‘by ear’, so to speak, then the road ahead will be much rougher for him and for all. I don’t think that any one person, regardless of brilliance, experience and inculcation has all the answers to all the major problems Egypt has been facing for decades and more so since the precipitous decline under Morsi’s aegis. Of all the major issues facing him the most pressing is controlling the mood of the people. This requires wearing a mantra of peace-loving, conciliating toughness. Peace-loving and conciliation is understood by some but toughness is understood by all. I believe that Al-Sisi has the ability to play this dual role. The Islamist wave in Egypt has been partially controlled but rest assured that it will exert its utmost to challenge the will of the people and their choice of leader.
We all are Egyptians, first and foremost. The division based on religious affiliation is artificial and imposed. This is the very moment where we must unite under one banner, whether we live in the homeland or are expatriates. The support to Mr. Al-Sisi by those of us in the Diaspora is genuine and proactive. Most, if not all, are prepared to lend their support in a variety of ways and means, to assure the success of the coming regime.
May the Lord bless Egypt.
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Saba E. Demian, M.D.
