Egypt's Presidential Elections 2018 : The initial unsurprising list of presidential candidates

State-owned Al-Ahram Daily's Front Page of 31 January 2018 issue 

via Instagram  

Egypt’s National Elections Authority “NEA” published its official initial list of Presidential candidates as an advertisement in State-owned al-Ahram Daily's Front page on Wednesday.

Unsurprisingly, the two only initial Presidential candidates for elections 2018 are current President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the leader of Ghad Party Moussa Ahmed Moussa.

The NEA listed as well the number of endorsements each candidate received from MPs in the House of Representatives and citizens in at least 15 governorates across the country.

Current President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi got endorsements from 549 MPs in the House of Representatives and 161,707 citizens across the country while his last-minute rival, the leader of Ghad Party Moussa Ahmed Moussa got endorsements from 20 MPs in the parliament.

Ironically, Moussa Moussa "just like Missa Missa of Death Note" claimed in his bizarre presser following his last-minute candidacy on Monday that he submitted 45,000 endorsements from citizens across the country in addition to the endorsement of 20 MPs in the parliament.

Egypt’s Presidential Elections 2018: The Search for a rival candidate is still on !!

Another episode of the wacky and interesting Egyptian presidential elections race 2018 which has proved that it is so interesting than the 2014 race after all !!

Previously as read on our blog, Egypt’s former top auditor Hisham Geneina is still in the Hospital. Sunday evening, the Prosecution decided to release him considering a victim. The prosecution also ordered the detention of the three men who attacked him 4 days pending investigations.

The statement in Arabic 

Those three men are currently accused now of several charges by the prosecution including thuggery, robbery, theft and possession of unlicensed light arms.
Moving to a very interesting development took place in Egypt related to the elections also Sunday evening.

A group of prominent politicians and political activists issued a statement calling for the cancellation of the Presidential elections 2018 because it lost its minimum legitimacy.

The statement issued on Sunday condemned “all the security practices by the current regime” to stop any fair competition in the Presidential elections recounting what happened to the presidential hopefuls starting with Ahmed Shafik to what happened to Sami Anan and Hisham Geneina.

They also demanded the suspension of the National Elections Authority “NEA” and dissolution of its board because it covered up the security and administrative interfere in the elections process from the very beginning.

Egypt's Presidential Elections 2018 : It is a mad violent one-man show

First of all happy #Jan25 ya people of the world, especially our great people of Egypt. Tonight we are having a crazy episode of the Egyptian Presidential Elections 2018 race, a violent one
Second, since early Saturday and Egypt has one thing to speak about: How former top auditor Hisham Geneina was physically assaulted and spent hours in a New Cairo Police Station bleeding till he was transferred to a proper hospital.

Hisham Geneina after the attack
"Ziyad El-Elaimy"

Early Saturday, the former head of Accountability of State Authority was heading from his house to the State Council, where he is appealing against the presidential decree that dismissed from his position as Egypt’s top auditor.
upscale New Cairo to Giza to attend his lawsuit in front the State

According to his wife and daughter who spoke to the media, he was stopped by another car full of thugs who attacked and assaulted him few blocks away from his house. Geneina called his wife as the thugs tried to get him from the car as far as I understood. Geneina's wife, his eldest daughter Shorouk and the guard as his building hurried to see him only to find the thugs attacking him madly.

So the people called the police as far as I understood and the police came and took the reformist judge to the First Settlement police station where he was left there without any medical care despite the pleas of his family.

Soon ,prominent political activists hurried to his support.
The photos taken at the police state and published by former MP and leftist political activist Ziyad El-Elaimy speak alone

Seen in Cairo : Empty food supplies boxes

Empty boxes

Seen in Cairo: Empty boxes of food supplies given from the Egyptian armed forces to those in need in different areas and in different governorates.

via Instagram http://ift.tt/2niAAzw 

Egypt’s Presidential Elections 2018 : Khaled Ali Quits the race too

Thursday evening, renowned rights lawyer Khaled Ali declared in a press conference in Cairo that he would not continue in the Presidential Elections due to the lack of any possibility for competition.

Ali announced that he would not present his Presidential candidacy documents including the endorsements he and his campaign collected to the National Elections Authority “NEA” as planned on 25 January because of the absence of any possibility for true competition.

Khaled in the press conference "Samir Abdullah" 

Ali also attacked the NEA for ignoring the violations committed during the nomination phase including the theft of nomination endorsements in several governorates.
The NEA also rejected to share the number of endorsements he received officially as not his headquarters do not all receive the endorsements but they are sent electronically to the authority from notary offices as far as I understood.

Technically, most of the political figures and powers “which currently are described as opposition now” I know in Egypt called Khaled Ali and his presidential campaign to quit and withdraw from the race especially after what happened to the former military chief of staff and presidential hopeful Sami Anan on Tuesday.

Following the arrest of Anan, Ali’s campaign declared that it was holding a meeting to discuss the latest developments on Tuesday. I spoke with his campaign spokesperson that they would hold a press conference on Wednesday as they discussed all the scenarios in front of them.
Anan is officially arrested and is being interrogated at the Military Prosecution but his family told Mada Misr that they do not know his whereabouts !!
Thus, it is an officially-one-man presidential race after all.

Egypt’s Presidential Elections 2018 : And Anan is out of the race “Updated”

The drama continues in Egypt’s Presidential Elections on Tuesday , Egypt’s former Chief of staff and Presidential elections Hopeful Sami Anan was arrested and is currently interrogated as the Egyptian army issued an official statement not only rejecting his presidential candidacy as well accusing of number of charges above them forgery and attempt to incite public against army.

Updated on Wednesday : Anan’s family says that it does not know his current whereabouts after his arrest in an exclusive statement to Mada Misr.

Sami Anan (Reuters)

Earlier Tuesday, the Egyptian armed forces released a video statement that did not slam and rejected Sami Anan’s presidential candidacy but it also accused the former Chief of staff of incitement against the army with the aim of “driving a wedge between the armed forces and the Egyptian people”.

The army accused the 1973 war veteran of announcing his presidential candidacy “without getting the approval of the SCAF” or taking the necessary steps to terminate his service in the army. Now interestingly this statement or communique was issued by the General Command of the Egyptian armed forces and not by Supreme Council of Armed Forces “SCAF”.

This remark was noticed by many. I do not know what it means in the real world though.

I remember Sami Anan said clearly that he would admit his papers to the National Elections Authority “NEA” clearly after getting the permission or approval of SCAF per military laws.
The statement said that Anan was not retired yet as he was still on the Egyptian army’s reserve list !!!! It accused him of forging official documents.

Egypt’s Military Prosecutor also issued a gag order on the news related to the investigations into Anan’s case.
The statement did not specify what Anan is being investigated for except that it is case No.1 for the year 2018 in the Military prosecution office.

The “NEA” also excluded Anan from the voters’ database because he breached the elections by having his name added to the electoral roll while serving as an officer on the Egyptian army’s reserve list.
I am quite surprised that the NEA discovered only now this alleged forgery.

In December 2012, Anan and other retired former SCAF leading figures above them Hussein Tantawy voted for the first in their lives as civilians in the 2012 Constitution referendum.
Why did nobody speak about that before?

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.