PH
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was sworn in for a third six-year term on Tuesday, after being re-elected in a December vote with no significant challengers.
El-Sissi took his oath of office before parliament, which met at the new administrative capital in the desert outside Cairo.
Egypt, which just reached an agreement with the IMF, is dealing with an economic crisis and has seen its dollar revenues from the Suez Canal fall compared to last year following attacks on ships by Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea.
“Between the evil terrorist attempts at home, the sudden global crises abroad, and the fierce international and regional wars around us, we are forced to confront challenges that may not have been encountered on this scale and severity throughout Egypt’s modern history,” El-Sissi said in a speech to lawmakers.
He received 89.6% of the vote in the December election, with 66.8% of the more than 67 million registered voters participating. He faced three virtually unknown opponents.
El-Sissi ousted democratically elected Islamist Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and won his first election the following year.
He was reelected in 2018. A year later, constitutional amendments enacted in a public referendum extended el-Sissi’s second term by two years and allowed him to run for a third six-year term.
