Copts and the Forthcoming Presidential Elections
While the Coptic Pope has supported al-Sīsī’s presidential bid, Coptic intellectuals think it may take more than the Pope’s blessings for the Copts to vote for him.
On March 22, a few days before Field Marshall ‘Abd al-Fattāh al-Sīsī declared his presidential bid, Pope Tawadros appeared on the Kuwaiti TV channel, al-Watan, and made no secret of endorsing al- Sīsī’s nomination. By calling him the “hero of the June 30th Revolution” and praising his nomination as a “patriotic duty of the first degree,” the Pope affirmed al- Sīsī’s sweeping popular support among Egyptians.
Soon after the Pope’s statements, on March 28, the US based Time Magazine generalized that the Copts will collectively support al- Sīsī, claiming that “Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, is the miracle that Egypt's 8 million Christians have been waiting for after weathering an Islamist leadership […] they hailed al-Sisi as a messiah, the only one who could have saved them.”
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Yosra El Gendi,
Researcher, Arab-West Report
Emerging Perspectives on Intercultural and Interreligious Relations
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