Egypt: elections without surprises for Al Sisi

Egypt goes to the polls today, Sunday, to elect the next president, in a vote with little room for surprises, in which it is expected that Abdel Fatah al Sisi can extend his mandate until 2030. Despite the serious economic crisis that the country is going through and the instability caused by the war in Gaza, Sisi competes with the advantage of having a very weakened political opposition and a constitutional reform that extends the legislature up to six years and allows him to renew a third term. mandate

The voting that began this Sunday will last three days, in which some 67 million Egyptians are called to the polls, out of a total population of 104 million.. If none of the candidates reaches 50% of the votes necessary to win the presidency, the two representatives with the most votes will face the polls again in January.. Al Sisi, who rose to power with a coup d'état against the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi, later won the presidential elections in 2014 and 2018 with approximately 97% of the votes.. In the current elections, he is expected to renew his position in the first round, although a decrease in participation is also predicted, which already fell in the last elections, with 41% of votes.

Repression

His decade in power is marked by great repression against the entire political spectrum considered opposition. Human rights groups have denounced the detention of tens of thousands of activists, politicians and sympathizers of both Islamist and liberal parties.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported cases of torture and long periods of detention without trial, along with serious restrictions on press freedom.. As the presidential elections approached, rights groups denounced attempts by the state to intimidate or stop the candidacy of any politician who was perceived as a threat to Al Sisi.. This is the case of Ahmad Tantawi, a leftist candidate who presented his proposal last May. However, Amnesty International has reported since October that at least 196 people have been arrested for participating in protests, terrorism or for spreading alleged false news about the elections.. “The much-feared security apparatus has already eliminated any serious candidate,” he writes.

Uncertainty

The vote takes place at a time of great economic uncertainty, due to the debt of 29,000 million dollars that the country carries, along with an inflation of nearly 40% that has reduced the household economy.. Precisely the economic situation is the concern of the main opposition candidate, Abdel Sanad Yamama, who heads the liberal Wafd party with the slogan “Save Egypt.”

Yamama promises to improve the country's economy and reform the legal system to avoid so much interference from the executive branch. The candidate promises to return to four-year terms and that no president can renew his position more than twice.. On the other hand, the businessman with several tourism companies, Hazem Omar, is another of the candidates. Omar was a senator and is perceived as a pro-Sisi candidate since he has never been heard criticizing the current president.

Finally, there is the social democratic candidate Farid Zahran, a prominent figure in the leftist movements of the 70s, although he is perceived as an actor close to the country's security services and the current president.. Zahran wants to stop the current president's infrastructure projects in order to improve other economic assets that have a greater impact on the daily lives of Egyptians.