CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's president has given a thinly veiled but stern warning to opposition politicians calling for a boycott of presidential elections in March, saying he would die first before allowing anyone to mess with the country's security.

A clearly furious Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a general-turned-president, spoke Wednesday a day after a coalition of opposition parties and public figures called for a boycott of the March 26-28 vote, which they described as a farce.

El-Sissi is virtually certain of winning a second four-year term in office.

Without directly mentioning the boycott call or the March vote, el-Sissi said he would take "measures" against anyone who disrupts Egypt's stability.

He says: "You seem not to know me well enough, but by God, the price of Egypt's security is my life and the life of the army."