Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said on Thursday he will run for Egypt president in elections that he is widely expected to win easily, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper.
Al-Seyassah published a lengthy interview with Sisi in which he reportedly said he “would fulfill the people’s demands to run for president.”
The 59-year-old was recently given the green light by Egypt’s military council to contest the first presidential elections after the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July amid mass protests against his rule.
Sisi, who was also promoted to field marshal from general, is expected to step down as the army chief before seeking election.
Presidential polls should be held between 17 February and 18 April after interim president Adly Mansour decided to bring it forward, contradicting a roadmap drawn up following Morsi’s ouster which would have seen parliamentary elections take place first.
The first phase of the roadmap was completed last month when Egyptians voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new constitution.
“Egyptians have big dreams and in order to fulfill those dreams we need everyone to help and cooperate. Some rulers disturbed the country by using their position to serve their own interests,” Sisi added in an apparent reference to Morsi, whose divisive and erratic rule prompted millions to take to the streets on 30 June last year to demand snap presidential elections.
“We don’t have a magic wand but we will not tamper with the people’s dreams and aspirations. Let’s hold our hands together and work for the country.”
Sisi is expected to secure a landslide victory in the presidential elections, having earned a cult status among many Egyptians.
He is portrayed by his opponents as a brutal army chief who staged a coup to restore what is widely known as a police state while his supporters hail him as a rescuer who saved a country that was teetering on the verge of civil war.
Egypt’s interim authorities have cracked down hard on the Muslim Brotherhood since dispersing two pro-Morsi camps in August last year, killing hundreds and arresting most of the Islamist group’s leaders.
They are also fighting an Islamist insurgency that killed hundreds of army and police personnel in the restive Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere, including in Cairo where a car bomb detonated in front of the city’s central police headquarters last month, killing four and wounding dozens.