As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press on Tuesday evening supporters and critics of Al-Sisi would have been tuning in to follow the second installment of the interview the former chief of the army gave to two of the most widely viewed satellite channels, OnTV and CBC. The Tuesday evening show was the third primetime TV appearance of Al-Sisi, who has otherwise kept a low profile since last summer's ouster of Mohamed Morsi. The first appearance of the presidential hopeful — far and away the favourite according to opinion polls — was on Sunday when a number of TV channels aired an edited version of an open debate conducted with TV anchors. The second was the first episode of the interview conducted by TV hosts Lamees Al-Hadidi and Ibrahim Eissa. In 2005 Al-Hadidi was the spokesperson for the first, and only, Mubarak election campaign, while Eissa was a longterm critic of Mubarak. Both Al-Hadidi and Eissa were fierce in their opposition to Morsi. “We did not choose these two anchors because of their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood,” said a member of Al-Sisi's media team, “but because they are among the most viewed TV anchors. Yes, they are supportive of our candidate, and any campaign strategist would want sympathetic interviewers. If you can get the best and if they support you do it.” The messages Al-Sisi was putting across in his joint interview with the CBC and OnTV were much the same as those delivered in his earlier meeting with a larger group of TV anchors. Security and stability are his key themes. “They are why I will vote for him,” says Haniyah, a retired civil servant. “No country in the world can succeed without security and stability.” Haniyah has a series of stories to share about “the shocking lack of security”. There is the relative whose car was stolen and another whose driver was attacked on the road and forced to abandon the car. She talks of a relative who had to pretend she was asleep while the thieves emptied her jewelry box and cash drawer, another whose domestic help arrived with bruises all over her body after she was attacked and her handbag snatched. The problem, says Haniyah, is not to do with the police but is “about the security that went missing after the [25 January] revolution and that we now want the president to bring back — at any cost”. In his TV appearances Al-Sisi clearly linked stability and security and said for both to function all laws need to be observed. That includes the controversial protest law which, he said to the approving nods of his interviewers, is a prime example of legislation that must be enforced. It is “unacceptable”, he said, that those who do not like the law protest against it. Too many protests, argued the presidential candidate who came to public prominence after supporting the massive demonstrations of 30 June, undermine the stability of the country. And this, he added, “is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to happen”. “Now he is showing his true face. He is being candid after all the sentimental talk about sympathy with the poor and weak and support for the cause of justice. The man is going to trample, and all under the name of protecting the country,” says Ahmed, a 30-year old graphic designer. Three years ago Ahmed took part in the 25 January Revolution and today feels that this revolution “is being buried alive”. Mubarak, he says, removed by 25 January Revolution, is now being openly celebrated as a good president who was removed by the Muslim Brotherhood. His chief of military intelligence is now running for president as the man who saved the country from the Muslim Brotherhood. Ahmed was “shocked, really shocked” to hear a presidential candidate promising to make it difficult for people to demonstrate. “The bottom line of everything Al-Sisi said comes to two things: he is going to restrict the freedom of the media and the right to demonstrate.” Al-Sisi, according to his media team member “was very careful in what he said on these two issues”. “In both interviews, as in other meetings, he has stressed that he has no plans to touch freedoms stipulated in the constitution. All he wants to do is to stop any abuse of these freedoms beyond the limits of law”. If social media is anything to go by Al-Sisi has a long way to go if he is to convince younger voters. They appear particularly concerned about references to the 25 January Revolution which was openly qualified by one TV anchor in the meeting with Al-Sisi as “a ploy” despite the fact that the recently approved constitution considers it a seminal political event. “He said nothing about the qualification of 25 January as a conspiracy. This is where he is coming from,” said Maha, a 26-year old banker. In his daily column in the independent Al-Watan Mohamed Fathi, who has refused to support either Al-Sisi or the Muslim Brotherhood, told his readers that Al-Sisi said “a lot, and with considerable respect and appreciation, about the 25 January Revolution” but this “was edited out”. The choice of what was edited and what was not in the three hour meeting has been widely debated. TV sources insist that they did not do the editing of the tape. “It was all done by the campaign,” said one. A source who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly from the media campaign said it was done “under the supervision of the minister of information” — a story denied by sources at the office of the Ministry of Information. Al-Sisi critics also complain the presidential candidate failed to offer a coherent vision: “It was almost as if it were enough that he would become president,” said one. He said nothing about key problems, did not elucidate any policies on energy or subsidies and made no reference to transitional justice or inclusive democracy. “He kept talking about himself and about who he was and what he could be but said absolutely nothing about the problems we are living with. I was not going to vote for him anyway but having listened to him I am more frustrated and more concerned than ever,” says Khaled, a 33-year old lawyer. Khaled was not planning to vote given he thinks “this is not an electoral process but an inauguration of an army chief who, like Mubarak, is being promoted to be a president and who, also like Mubarak, is telling us that he is there by the will of God to prevent chaos”. After having followed the two TV showings of Al-Sisi, though, Khaled says he will vote for Hamdeen Sabahi. “I know that he will not win and I don't even think he will make a particularly good president but having listened to what Al-Sisi has to say I am now convinced that a strong protest vote in favour of Hamdeen Sabahi is a wise political decision.” Yet those who already supported Al-Sisi are even more fervent following his TV appearances. For them he sent all the right messages: a family man who talks with respect about his wife; a man who has faith in the role of women in society; a religious man who also respects other religions; a man with a military background who will keep the army in its barracks but introduce discipline and hard work to the state and, above all, the man who stood up to the Muslim Brotherhood, dealt political Islam an unprecedented blow and who is promising that during his “tenure as president there will be nothing called the Muslim Brotherhood”. “Let us face reality. We tried Western style democracy last time and got the Muslim Brotherhood and look where we have landed,” says Kamal, a 66-year old lawyer. Kamal acknowledges that the transition was mismanaged by all parties, including the Supreme Council of Armed Forces of which Al-Sisi was a member. “But the biggest mistake was that of the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. I voted for Morsi in the second round after long thought. I said to myself, they are supposedly God-fearing people and maybe they will deliver but look at where they took the country and look at what they did to it. What Al-Sisi revealed in his interview [with Al-Hadidi/Eissa] was shocking.” In the interview the presidential hopeful revealed that there were two attempts on his life by the Muslim Brotherhood. He also said that Brotherhood's deputy supreme guide – the now imprisoned Khairat Al-Shater — openly threatened, a few days before the 30 June demonstrations, to bring in waves of militants from Syria, Afghanistan and Libya to fight against the army if Morsi was removed. The account was categorically denied by Al-Shater's family on Facebook. Kamal is convinced that “we now have no other choice”. “Hamdeen Sabahi might be a good parliamentarian but he is not presidential material. Al-Sisi might be a good president and if he is not then he will be removed like his two predecessors. He has said he is fully aware of this fact.” In his session with the group of TV and radio anchors and in his Al-Hadidi/Eissa interview, Al-Sisi did say that “it is public opinion that is in charge” and that “Egyptians are the highest authority.” He quit the army at the request of the public who will ultimately decides the fate of any president “as anyone who observed 25 January and 30 June must realise”. As activist and columnist Wael Abdel-Fattah reminded his reader in his daily column on Monday Al-Sisi, maybe as part of the carefully designed tone of his discourse, insisted “it is God that would be putting him to rule”. For Abdel-Fattah it was a mediaeval reference. Other commentators argued it was the expression of a man who knows his fate is in the hands of God. “We decided it was a priority to consolidate our own constituency rather than to try to appeal to groups that will not be with us anyway. This is the key lesson, we think, of the 2012 elections: focus on your constituency and try to win those on its fringes rather than trying to appeal to those who are opposed to you,” says the member of Al-Sisi's campaign media team. On Tuesday afternoon the source said the campaign was monitoring “remarkable approval rates, especially after the interview with Al-Hadidi and Ibrahim Eissa” among its designated target group. The remainder of the campaign, he says, will continue to focus on the same key points: appeal to the solid constituency; send clear messages to the larger public on Al-Sisi's commitment key services like health and education; stress the religious side of their candidate and so deny Islamist critics the chance to portray him as unobservant; underline the disciplined military nature of the presidential candidate while insisting that his military background does not mean the army will be ruling and push that his nomination is the decision of the people and his presidency will be shaped by their will. “We know we are winning but we want an impressive turnout. This is what we are targeting.” Al-Sisi's media team is not bothered by criticism that their candidate is not holding rallies or touring the country. They do not seem to mind charges that their candidate lacks a coherent programme. The argument is simple and clear: those who will vote for Al-Sisi will do so because they trust he can deliver change.
