Orchestrating a military coup against a demcoratically elected government, leading a junta that killed thousands of protesters and has sentenced many more to death for organizing those protests, Egypt’s incoming president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is worried people think he’s “too soft,” and gave a harsh statement on his incoming regime in a television interview and leaked comments associated with it.

“I’m not leaving a chance for people to act on their own,” Sisi declared, going on to promise he would forcibly turn Egypt into a “first-class nation.”

“People think I’m a soft man. Sisi is torture and suffering,” declared Sisi, who among other things, vowed to send troops to people’s houses to install energy efficient lightbulbs as a way of solving the nation’s fuel shortage.

Sisi styles himself as a paternal autocrat, and seems to view Egypt’s economic problems as personal failings on the part of individuals, promising longer work days and less pay as a path to modernity. “I will not sleep and neither will you,” he vowed in the interview.

It should go without saying after killing thousands of people, but Sisi promised he will brook no dissent, saying that the people who oppose his ban on public protests “want to destroy Egypt.” Terrifyingly, while being straightforward about his intentions, Sisi remains something of a media darling in the US, as a “tough on terror” strongman.