The US will send a senior State Department official as its representative at the swearing-in ceremony of new Egyptian president-elect Abdel Fattah al-Sisi but no cabinet-level ministers will attend the function in a sign of America's unease with the democratic transition.
"The US delegation to the Egyptian presidential inauguration of will be headed by the State Department counsellor Thomas Shannon on behalf of President (Barack) Obama," the State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Marie Harf, told reporters yesterday.
"Counselor Shannon and Senior Advisor to the Secretary David Thorne will be part of this delegation that also will include the Department of Treasury to Cairo for the inauguration," she said.
The US looks forward to working with President-elect al-Sisi in Egypt and his government to advance their strategic partnership and many shared interests, Harf said.
The US, she said, thinks that there is still a path to go here for Egypt on its democratic transition.
"We have been very clear about our concerns about the crackdown on freedom of expression, on the press.
We have talked in here about journalists who are still in jail," she said.
Harf acknowledged that the US was not yet "satisfied" with the progress made in returning to democracy in Egypt.
"We have talked in here about the hundreds and hundreds of people sentenced to death for things that look sheerly political. So we have been very clear with our concerns about the democratic transition here, and Egypt has a long way to go. But there's an opportunity now to turn the page here," Harf said.
"Democracy is about more than just a ballot box, it's about how you govern, it's about how inclusive you are. So we're going to be looking for all of those things going forward in terms of how this new government behaves," she said.
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won a landslide victory bagging over 96 per cent votes in the presidential polls on May 29.
He won at least 23.9 million votes with an overwhelming number of Egyptians choosing the retired Field Marshal over his only electoral rival Hamdeen Sabbahi, who won less than four per cent.
