Egypt’s newly elected president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, vowed on Thursday that the country would not go backwards but move forward, Al Arabiya reports.
Speaking to the Kuwaiti newspaper Aljarida, Sisi said, “We know that some people fear a return to the past, but this will not happen, there is no going back and we will move forward.”
“The population has ambitions and there are humble people who need us to work and fight for them,” he added.
"We will please Egyptians through actions and not through words," declared Sisi.
The interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper came after results from this week’s presidential election in Egypt indicated that Sisi overwhelmingly won the contest with more than 90 percent of the votes.
Sisi gained favor among Egyptians after he ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi last July.
Since that time, hundreds of Islamists have been placed on trial, and the Muslim Brotherhood has been outlawed and designated as a terrorist organization.
It is hoped that Sisi’s election will bring about a calm in Egypt, though former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Tzvi Mazel told Arutz Sheva on Friday that Sisi will have a hard time putting the country in order.
"Egypt is a poor country, with 85 million residents. Every half year another half a million babies are born there, and every year 800,000 residents join the mass of job seekers; the financial situation is very difficult," Mazel said.
Without support from the West, Mazel says Sisi will have a rough time rehabilitating the Nile state which has been engulfed in violence since the 2011 "Arab Spring" which led to the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak.
"At this stage, Europe and also Obama have turned a cold shoulder on Sisi, claiming that he held a military coup and suspended the elected president; that's a serious problem," remarked Mazel.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)