Presidential elections 2018 : A-One-Man show Already

Do you know that Egypt is going to have presidential elections in mid-2018 ??
Yes, Egypt is going to have new presidential elections most probably in May 2018.
Most people can not remember this fact because simply we do not have ongoing presidential elections campaign like in the past or even in other countries.

Only those who follow news carefully can find this sort of news like "National Elections committee to start preparing for 2018 Presidential elections" to remember shortly that we are going to have elections in May.

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s first 4-years presidential term will end after a couple of months and yet we do not have officially or non-officially any presidential hopefuls who ready to stand against the current president whether sincerely or even for the sake of the show.

Per Egyptian Constitution article No.140, the procedures for electing the President of the Republic begin at least 120 days before the end of the presidential term.

It will ridiculous for real to start the Presidential elections campaigns 120 days before the end of the Presidential terms of El-Sisi but it seems that this is what is going to happen.
Abdel Fattah El-Sisi did not officially or directly that he would run for the Presidential elections 2018 but he said indirectly that he would do what the people wanted him to do including running for the presidential office again.
It is not a big secret that he will run eventually.

El-Sisi's campaign poster in Presidential elections 2018

He also urged the people to go to ballot boxes when the time comes.
We still remember how the last Presidential elections which El-Sisi in 2014 had very low turnout.
Sisi got 96.9% of the votes in those elections.

When it comes to his rivals in the upcoming elections, it is a big question mark.

Seen in Cairo : Another retro Cairo font

There is some kind of love relation between me and handwritten fonts on the shop banners in Cairo, especially Downtown Cairo.
This shop is not in Downtown Cairo but its handwritten banner which says it Samir upholstery was beautiful standing between two ugly computer generated banners.
I love how the word "Samir " is written in a retro-ish way. I am searching for that Font online.

Via Instagram 

These are the Most expensive Houses in Egypt “I guess”

I stumbled upon that Real Estate website last week when my colleague was speaking about it and about how it had probably the most expensive houses sold with ludicrous prices in Egypt.
I did not believe the numbers at first but then I took a look and browsed in the website.
Then I remember how Egypt is the land of extreme contradictions, we got extreme wealth and poverty at the same time.

Last week I was interviewing a poor woman who was sleeping under a bridge under construction because the government kicked her out and demolished her house allegedly built on a state-owned land, a claim which is false. It is just crazy country indeed.

Without any further due here are the most expensive buildings in Egypt as listed in PropertyFinder.eg :

1-Ibn Zinky’s Villa: LE 270 Million

Yes, you read it right, this villa is up for sale for LE 270 Million {USD 15 Million}.
I do not know who owns this villa or rather the palace.
At first, I suspected it was owned former minister of finance and fugitive Youssef Botros Ghali in Zamalek which has been confiscated by the state in Zamalek island. (He turned to have a land in Zamalek worth of LE 200 million located directly to the Nile which he bought from more than ten years with a price less than its real value)
Yet, it turned out that Ghali’s villa is on another street in the upscale island.
Oddly, the website did not publish photo for the villa’s façade but it published photos of the villa’s interiors.
It seems that it is art deco village based upon its door.

The villa's door 

Aside from the many bedrooms, this villa got a sun room and some sort of a theater.
The website did not mention either when this villa was built.

The Sun room in the villa 

That small old home theater 

Needless to say, we are speaking about Zamalek upscale island so this villa could be very old.
I know the location of this villa, I will try to go and have quick look.

2-Another Zamalek villa: LE 252 Million

In the second place, we got another Zamalek villa for sale. You can own this classical villa for LE 252 Million {USD 14 Million}.

The dining room 

The 200 pounds bill

This is a 200-Egyptian pounds bill that my aunt got from the ATM today and we found the following words on it in Arabic as follows :

• 100 pounds for the refrigerator's monthly installment
•  50 pounds for the TV installment
•  50 pounds for the blanket's installment 😞
• LE 200 Mahfouz

Warraq Island : There is some island curse in Egypt nowadays

For nearly three weeks I have been away from the blog as I had technical problems with my laptop.
Thank God, I fixed those problems by a clean Windows 10 install and you can imagine how things have been.
In all those days, I had one thing I wanted to blog about as soon as I am back online: The Egyptian Tiran and Sanafir islands.
Yes, I was planning to write about Tiran and Sanafir islands and share the documents I have been gathering online to prove that the islands are 100% Egyptian.
Now, I am back and I am going to write on the blog about an island but not about Tiran or Sanafir. I am going to write about Warraq island because it seems that there is something is wrong with islands nowadays in this country.
First of all, here are very quick information about Warraq island.
It is the biggest Nile island in Egypt, yes it is bigger than Zamalek and El-Manial Nile islands
It is the most populated island in Egypt as there are some estimations speaking about 100 thousand people living there.
Its recorded history as well past Egypt’s census shows that it was inhabited in the 19th century and it has been commonly known as Warraq Al-Khader.

Warraq island on Google map 

Officially, it has been considered part of Giza governorate since the 20th century but it is over looking two other governorates: Cairo and Qalyubia. This gives you an idea of its size.
It was the first place in Giza to cultivate potatoes and it was the main potato supplier to the British occupation camps. Yes, the Nile used to flood it before the construction of Aswan High Dam but it has been there the whole time.
I had to say this introduction because of the lies spread by Pro-regime media in the past few days as well by the officials themselves in Egypt.
From a week ago, we woke up one Sunday morning to find that there were clashes between the residents of Warraq island and the security forces from Egypt’s police and armed forces.
Sooner, the clashes resulted in the death of one of the locals and we found out that the angry islanders cut roads in Imbaba district, the mainland. The Islanders returned back to the island to hold a very big funeral for that 20-years old man. Video clips of the angry islanders began to emerge to say another story than the government’s.

Officially, the government and the ministry of interior issued statements claiming that a campaign went the island in order to restore the State-owned land to remove illegal structures and encroachments on state property on the banks of the Nile.
They were speaking about 700 evacuations orders to be executed in the island, only 9 houses were evacuated and demolished them.

A mother of four sitting in front of what once was her house.

The statements also said that the residents of Warraq island attacked the security forces with birdshot and automatic guns injuring not less than 30 police personnel including a police general.
At night, the usual Pro-regime TV night talk shows slammed and attacked the residents of the Warraq island for hijacking the state-owned land and resisting the authorities.
The usual set of accusations like being an agent of Qatar and Muslim Brotherhood stronghold were repeated boringly.

Seen in Cairo : Nabulsi Shaheen soap factory

Seen in Cairo: The once famous handmade Nabulsi Shaheen olive oil soap factory in Alazhar area, Cairo.

 In the first half of the 20th century, Nabulsi Shaheen was the most famous and popular soap in Egypt. There were several popular brands of the Olive oil soap, originally made in Palestine. The most famous brand was Nabulsi Shahin.

Originally named Nabusli Shaheen in the 1920s, the famous Nabulsi soap used to have a different name before the July 1952 coup. Its name had been Nabulsi Farouk from the 1930s to 1950s.

Yes, it was named after King Farouk of Egypt and Sudan due to his popularity at first in the country but it was changed as soon as he was ousted.

Seen in Cairo : Old Minaret

That old minaret of that old mosque in that old #Cairo street standing high with its engravings as it much as it can.
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