Cairo: Former defence minister Abdul Fattah Al Sissi was on Sunday inaugurated as Egypt’s president, pledging an influential role for the country at regional and international levels.
“New Egypt will undertake its responsibility and directly contribute to fulfilling security and stability of the region and our Arab nation,” Al Sissi said at an inaugural ceremony attended by delegations from around the world.
“Building the homeland will be accompanied by reviving Egypt’s pioneering and influential role”,” he added, promising to achieve a “comprehensive renaissance” for the country during his four-year term.
Al Sissi and outgoing caretaker president Adly Mansour signed a power handover document, a precedent in Egypt.
Mansour, a former judge, took office last July following the army’s toppling of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi, Egypt’s first freely elected president.
“Throughout its history, our nation has not seen such a democratic, peaceful transfer of power,” Al Sissi said in his inaugural address at Al Ittahdiya Palace in eastern Cairo.
Mansour is to be reinstated as chief judge of Egypt’s top court.
Al Sissi has soared to popularity in Egypt since he led the army’s ouster of Mursi following enormous protests against his one-year rule.
He won a landslide victory in last month’s two-candidate election, securing nearly 97 per cent of the votes cast.
A dozen heads of state attended Al Sissi’s inauguration amid tight security. They include rulers of Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Palestine, Chad, Mali, Equatorial Guinea and Eritrea. Key dignitaries also comprised General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, as well as Saudi Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have pumped billions of dollars into the Egyptian economy since Mursi’s overthrow.
In his inaugural address, Al Sissi lauded Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz for his call to hold a donor conference to assist Egypt, whose economy has been roiled by turmoil over the past three years.
“I look forward to the participation of all Egypt’s friends in this conference,” Al Sissi said.
In a sign of a thaw in ties between Cairo and Doha, the Qatari ambassador in Egypt attended Al Sissi’s inauguration. Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad sent a congratulatory cable to Al Sissi on taking office, the official Qatari news agency reported.
Egyptian officials said Qatar had not been invited to Al Sissi’s inauguration due to Doha’s staunch backing of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, Iran, whose relations improved with Egypt under Mursi, was represented at the inauguration by its Deputy Foreign Minister Hussain Amir Abdollahian Hussain and Charge d’Affaires in Cairo Mujtaba Amani.
Egypt had invited Iranian President Hassan Rowhani to the ceremony.
Signalling their displeasure with alleged rights abuses in the post-Mursi transition, most Western governments sent low-level delegations to the inauguration. EU ambassadors in Cairo represented their countries.
The US was represented by Thomas Shannon, the counsellor to Secretary of State John Kerry.
Washington and Cairo have been key allies since Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. However, Egyptian-US ties have deteriorated since Mursi’s ouster, although Washington stopped short of calling his removal a coup.
“On such occasions, the emphasis is on the scale of participation, not the level,” said Waheed Abdul Majid, an expert at Al Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies. “The high attendance today [Sunday] reflects the world’s recognition of the new reality in Egypt.”
Earlier on Sunday, Al Sissi boarded an army helicopter to the Constitutional Supreme Court where he took the oath of office, a measure highlighting security threats facing the new president.
On going to the same court in 2012 to be sworn in, Mursi was driven in a motorcade, a procedure observed by his predecessors at their swearing-in ceremonies.
As Al Sissi was being sworn in, thousands of security forces and explosives experts were deployed outside the court building in southern Cairo. An army helicopter was seen flying over the area.
Al Sissi has recently disclosed two foiled attempts on his life purportedly masterminded by Islamist insurgents.
A pro-Mursi alliance called for mass protests against Al Sissi’s inauguration. There were no reports about a massive response.
An inexorable security crackdown in recent months has obviously weakened the Islamist leader’s followers.
Al Sissi, 59, is Egypt’s fifth ruler drawn from the military since a 1952 army-led revolution ended the monarchy system in the country.
