“In the past few days, there has been lots of talk about the issue of running of presidential nomination,” said Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a celebration for the students of the military academy and institutes. The general looked weary as he explained that he was not free to talk since he held the office of defense minister, but reassured people that he could not turn his back on something that the “majority of Egyptians want.” The crowd cheered, but their excitement did not translate itself on the general’s face. The man who reveled in the crowd’s adoration a few months ago, when he asked them to authorize him to fight terrorism, was gone; the man replacing him, as one Twitter user put it, almost looked as scared at the prospect of ruling Egypt as we are of having him as our ruler.

The reason behind his fatigue is understandable; after all, the countdown for official presidential nomination is drawing nigh, which means he has to leave his position as defense minister — which the new constitution secures for the next eight years — and campaign for the worst job in Egypt. He has to sell himself as a “civilian savior” while dealing with national embarrassments such as the military’s miracle AIDS-curing machine, a continuing insurgency in Sinai, a government that is all but broke and power cuts that are becoming a regular, daily feature in every Egyptian home — and it's not even summer yet.

The problems Egypt faces in the next few years are insurmountable, and the widely held belief among many in the Egyptian population that the Gulf will continue to bail us out and will open the money floodgates once Sisi becomes president seems like a delusional pipe dream, once one does the math. The new government is already expected to fail, given that they are facing bad economic conditions, alongside huge corruption and no political will to reform how the government functions. With foreign reserves dwindling, we no longer have any safety nets, and the waste we have in government due to our exceptional corruption is simply unsustainable. The Sisi believers don’t care about any of this, talking about him in messianic fervor, with expectations so high that they dwarf those of the most enthusiastic Obama fanatic circa 2008. Once Sisi becomes president, their prayer says, he will make the government run right, and will deliver us from all of our problems.

Let’s assume that the fanatics are right and a miracle takes place that turns the dysfunctional Egyptian government into one that is both functional and efficient. Let’s assume that he manages to end the corruption and the waste, and turn employees that are used to half-an-hour-a-day productivity to working day and night to solve our nation’s ills. Would that be enough? The answer is unfortunately no. Even if he manages to do all of this, he will still fail. Here is why: