Election's participation to reflect Egypt's image aboard: Military general

CAIRO – 25 March 2018: The former director of the moral affairs department, Samir Farag, stated to Egypt Today on Sunday that Egyptians’ participation in the elections will reflect on the image of Egypt abroad and will confirm that Egyptians have the will and the upper hand in making the decision.

Farag hailed the participation of Egyptians abroad, saying “it was a message to the West that Egyptians are keen on preserving their homeland.” Moreover, he praised the effort exerted by the Ministry of Immigration Affairs in urging the Egyptians abroad to vote.

He evaluated the first presidential term fulfilled by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, saying, “I saw that the president’s first term was successful despite the difficulties, terrorism and external challenges. I saw that even though there was mounting pressure from the outside, Egypt retrieved its hallmark position and became a decision maker.

The whole world knows that the stability of Egypt means the stability of the Middle East region.”


The former director of the moral affairs department, General Samir Farag in an interview with Radio channel, Feb. 26, 2018 – YouTube/NogoumFM

Moreover, Farag praised Sisi’s economic development, saying that despite the economic obstacles that Sisi faced during his first presidential term, he sucesseded in building up strong national projects including huge oil and energy ventures
“There are already some external parties that support chaos in Egypt and support instability in Egypt, aiming to overthrow the regime. Since, if anything affects Egypt, the whole Middle East region will fall completely,” he explained.

In the same context, Farag reassured that the Sinai 2018 operation is working out and indeed rooting out terrorism in Sinai, adding that Sisi is following up the development of the operation on a daily basis. He also assured that there will be full development in Sinai.

“Sinai 2018 was launched based on precise intelligence information to face those who plan terrorist acts in order to disrupt the elections. On this basis, the armed forces have moved to abort the plans and movements of terrorist groups,” he said.
"Comprehensive Operation Sinai 2018” targets the hotbeds of terrorists in northern and central Sinai on Friday.

Sinai, in particular, has been a staging ground for militants operating in Egypt for decades. It is also believed to be home to the Islamic State’s Egyptian branch, which has been primarily targeting Christians and security forces.”

Farag concluded by commenting on the organizations that issued false reports on Egypt, saying that “they are externally supported and we will not mention a single country because everyone knows that these organizations receive confidential and suspicious funding to issue reports far from neutral about the situations in Egypt.

This is to serve a specific agenda, and its aim is to distort the image of Egypt externally and the image of the Egyptian State at home and abroad.”

Additional reporting by Jehad El-Sayed