Egyptians will head to the polls for three days, March 26 – 28, this year, in the first round of a presidential election, as the National Elections Authority Chief, Lasheen Ibrahim, has announced.
According to Ibrahim, a second round will be held between April 24 and 26 if required. Ibrahim said the commission would accept applications from presidential hopefuls between the 20th and 29th of this month. “The provisional list of candidates and the numbers of their supporters will be published” in state-run newspapers Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar on January 31, he said.
Once appeals by rejected candidates are settled, “the final list of candidates, their names and their symbols will be announced and published in the official gazette and Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar newspapers” on February 24, he said. That will mark the official start of the campaign, which will run until March 23, Ibrahim said, with final results to be announced on May 1. Egyptians living abroad are to cast their votes from March 16 to 18, he stated, with second round ballots between April 19 and 21, if necessary.
Incumbent President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is widely expected to stand for re-election and win in the first round. Sisi, a former Army Chief, was elected president in 2014, a year after leading the military to oust his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, amid mass protests against the Islamist’s year-long rule.
Former Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq, has made a U-turn by announcing that he would not be a candidate in the poll, after previously saying he would run.
