4 Jul 2013

Egypt’s new president: my task is ‘very onerous’

Egyptian people have “had enough of division” and must be “one body” in order to build a democratic nation, Egypt’s interim president Adly Mansour tells Channel 4 News in his first interview.

Speaking to Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman, Mr Mansour, a leading Egyptian judge, said the task that had been placed before him was “very onerous”.

Mr Mansour was sworn in as president the day after a military coup ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsi.

I’m not a president for a presidential term. I am a president to perform a specific task. Adly Mansour

Asked about his coming to power, which was not through democratic means, he said: “I did not come to power through election, but through the trust of the revolutionaries in the square.”

His message to the Egyptian people, he said, was “to be one body.”

“We have had enough of division,,” he said. “We require from all parties, left and right to mobilize theirs forces, to build this nation.”

Egypt "celebrates the end of democracy": Krishnan Guru-Murthy reports from Tahrir Square.

He also said that the Muslim Brotherhood would be welcome within this process of “nation building”. However, the Brotherhood said on Thursday that it would not work with the government of “usurpers”.

“I’m not a president for a presidential term,” he said. “I am a president to perform a specific task, I am president until we have parliamentary and presidential elections and the issue of the constitution is resolved.”