Egypt’s Presidential Elections 2018 : Let the Hunger games start “Updated”

Officially the Egyptian Presidential Elections race has kicked off today and man what a season premiere it is !!

Egyptian President El-Sisi
declaring his presidential candidacy

Lots of things have been happening on many levels that I wanted to comment on my blog here but unfortunately, my health did not give me an opportunity.
I have been sick the past week fighting terrible influenza-like hell and up till now I have not fully recovered but here I am, how can I miss that crazy presidential elections race.

We were all wrong that we assume it is going to be a dull one-candidate show as us and the whole world thought and are still thinking but things changed rapidly in the past three days.
In the non-surprising 100%-expected news, Current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi declared Friday evening that he was running for the office after three-days-event/conference presenting his achievements to the Egyptian people in those four years.
I do not know how many people actually followed that event named “Nation’s tale” but there were strange and interesting claims and numbers that need to be checked for real.

Interestingly, he said on the last day of that event that “he won’t allow the corrupted ones to run for the office”, I do not know whom he meant but it is not up to Abdel Fattah El-Sisi or the Egyptian President in the first place to allow or not allow people to run for the Presidential candidates.
It is up to the National Elections assembly to allow or not allow presidential hopefuls to run according to the constitution and Presidential elections law’s candidacy requirements.

Needless to say, we do not know whom he meant exactly.
Did he mean former PM Ahmed Shafik or former chief of staff Sami Anan? I am sure that he did not mean Khaled Ali.

Anyhow hours later following El-Sisi’ announcement on Friday, at 1.05 AM Cairo Local time Saturday the Sami Anan Presidential Campaign released a video for the former 2011 SCAF leading figure declaring his candidacy in a very powerful speech that I could have ever thought that I would hear it for him.

Here are the most important points in that video statement :

• Egypt is living a very important and critical phase full of challenges above them the terrorism challenge as well the bad economic living conditions of the Egyptian people.
• The Egyptian state can no longer is losing its ability to manage the files of the land “Do not know if he means Tiran and Sanafir”, the water “clear reference to Ethiopia’s GERD” and the human sources.
• All those challenges happened due to wrong policies that held the Egyptian armed forces the complete responsibility without wise policies that would enable the Civilian sector of the state to do with its role along with the army.
• Enabling the Civilian sector to rule in Egypt cannot happen without pluralistic political and economic regime that respects the constitution and law, believes in law and freedoms and upholds justice and the value of the republic system; which is based upon sharing powers.
• Sami Anan is intended to present his candidacy papers to the NAE as soon as he is granted the permission of Supreme Council of Armed Forces  “SCAF” to run for the office in accordance to the Egyptian Military laws as he was the Chief of staff.
• Anan added that he already made his team starting it with a civilian “nucleus” for the presidency and he decided to appoint the former top auditor Hisham Geneina as “Vice president for human rights, transparency and constitution enforcement” and renowned Political Sciences professor as his vice president for economic and political empowerment.
• Dr. Hazem Hosny is acting as his spokesperson as well “great choice”
• Sami Anan calls all the State’s civilian and military institutions to stand natural and not to be biased unconstitutionally for the current president “El-Sisi” who may leave his position after a couple of months officially.

If you remember veteran judge Geneina was dismissed from his position in summer 2016 in a humiliating way.

I do not have doubt that the one who wrote that very well written and powerful statement was written by Dr. Hazem Hosny.

I follow Dr. Honsy as a political commentator on social media for years now and I know that he believes in every single sentence in that statement.

If Anan manages to get the approval of SCAF to run for the position, those two names can draw support for him.

There is a big possibility that Anan may not get the approval of SCAF especially a couple of journalists who are either close to the regime or were once officers themselves are saying that.

The Pro-regime mainstream media is now repeating the Muslim Brotherhood’s support accusations to Anan and his team unsurprisingly. The talks about his financial corruption scandals and “being a U.S spy” are back again

Clearly, Anan is attacking El-Sisi and his administration directly. I do not know if El-Sisi would want him as a rival honestly.

It is not only the old military man is pushing the right buttons in his speech in a very critical time but I found out that his family got a whole Sufi Order named after them “The Anan” order which means Sufi votes “They do count in the elections” can split between him and El-Sisi.

Last week, little-known Egypt Arabism party which he founded in 2014 quietly declared that he intended to run for the office and since then we had news reports confirming and denying his candidacy.

I do not know much about that party.

A journalist working in Rose Al-Youssef Magazine claimed on Twitter that Sami Anan’s campaign sent that video to TV stations and they refused to air it at 10 PM. “Just like what happened with Ahmed Shafik if you remember”
This is all happening in less than 15 days following the sudden and surprising dismissal of Khaled Fawzy, the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence “GIS”, which Egyptians knew from Lebanese Al-Akhbar and Kuwaiti Al-Gardia first with no confirmation from Cairo.

The confirmation came officially in another surprising presidential decree issued in the State’s official gazette appointing El-Sisi’s chief of staff at the Presidency General Abbas Kamel as the acting Spy chief.
No official information was giving why Fawzy was dismissed in that way.

Yet close-to-regime writer and MP Mostafa Bakry claimed on Twitter that Fawzy was relieved of his position because he was so ill and that he was going to travel abroad to receive treatment for his alleged illness.
Crazy times indeed.