Egyptian TV host Ahmed Moussa's Sisi poll backfires horribly

A pro-regime Egyptian television personality has claimed that his Twitter account was hacked after the results of a poll he conducted about President Sisi's future didn't go as planned.

Narrated

2 min read

The New Arab

27 Aug, 2016

Ahmed Moussa is an anchor on Egypt's Sada el-Balad channel [YouTube]

One of Egypt's best known pro-government television personalities shut down his Twitter account after an improvised poll on President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi backfired.

Respondents to Ahmed Moussa's question about the future of Sisis overwhelmingly rejected a second term for the Egyptian dictator much to his suprise.

Poll

It all started when the Sada el-Balad anchor he asked his Twitter followers on Thursday to say whether they would re-elect the general-turned president for another term in office. To Moussa's surprise, the poll retured with 80 percent of respondents - about 1,500 people - voting 'no'.

The TV host then deactivated his Twitter account, later claiming on Facebook that it had been hacked. He also insisted that 90 percent had responded in favour of Sisi staying on as president.

"People say: we can't do without you O President," Moussa said on his Facebook page.

Egyptian social media users, however, didn't seem to buy into Moussa's claims. Many took to their keyboards to say that the anchor had run away in shame after the poll backfired.


	An alleged screenshot of the poll run by Moussa [Twitter]

Despite deleting the account, images also appeared on social media that allegedly showed the poll results before they were taken down. The pictures show the poll, which asks "Do you support the candidacy of President #ElSisi for a second term in office?" with a response of 81 percent for 'no'. This dwarfs the 19 percent who voted in favour of Egypt's leader.

Tight control

Since removing Egypt's first democratically elected president from power in 2013, Sisi has maintained close control over the country's media. This has included the closing of TV channels, newspapers and the arrests of journalists.

This has further elevated pro-regime TV anchors like Moussa to the forefront of Egyptian media, allowing Sisi's regime to spout their narrative on domestic and national events.

In October 2015, Moussa became the subject of social media mockery when used video game footage as proof of Russian accuracy with its airstrikes in Syria - which the TV anchor praised.

"Yes, this is the Russian army, this is Russian weaponry, this is Putin. Now you will see a terrifying video, terrifying," Moussa said while introducing the video game clip. The clip was later verified as being from a five-year-old combat flight simulator game.

In response, Twitter and Facebook users began uploading screenshots from popular video games, including Donkey Kong and Mario Kart, accompanied with the title "Ahmed Moussa reports".