Self-exiled businessman bids to unite Egyptian opposition

A self-exiled businessman has told the Associated Press that he’s marshaling political groups to topple Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

45 year old Mohammed Ali, who claims to know the secrets of the Egyptian military pitches himself as a former government insider.

“All the opposition groups outside of Egypt are agreeing with me. And this is the first time that has happened under Sissi’s rule. There are opposition living outside of Egypt, liberals, leftists, Brotherhood and some like me. And before they were always disagreeing with each other, but when I came here (to Spain) and started the topic of revolution, they approached me and asked me what do you want to do? What’s the future? In particular there was one video I made and I said it’s not for the Brotherhood or the military to rule, from my own point of view, but they got upset because I said so, and they started to talk to me again. I told them that we want Egypt to be like Europe, and they said we agree with you we want Egypt to move forward and we have to unify the ranks”, Ali said.

Without giving any evidence, Ali claims to have witnessed high-level corruption and large-scale misuse of funds as a contractor.

His allegations, recorded in a series of viral videos made in Spain, managed to spark rare protests in September against Sisi.

The government immediately stamped out the protests, arresting thousands of suspected dissidents across the country.

President Sisi has dismissed Ali’s claims as ‘‘sheer lies and defamation’‘.

AP