http://www.egyptnews.net/news/256010821/egypt-declares-it-will-hold-presidential-election-in-march
Egypt declares it will hold presidential election in March
Sheetal Sukhija - Tuesday 9th January, 2018
CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt's national election authority announced on Monday, that the country will hold a presidential election between March 26 and 28.
The chairman of the country's election commission said that it will hold a runoff in April.
Addressing a news conference in Cairo, Lasheen Ibrahim, the chairman of the national election authority said that a runoff will be held between April 24 and 26 if no candidate secures more than 50 percent of the vote.
State-run newspapers Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar quoted him as saying, "The provisional list of candidates and the numbers of their supporters will be published on January 31."
While the current president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi is widely expected to run and win a second four-year term - he has not officially announced his decision.
Sisi was the country's former army chief who has ruled Egypt since overthrowing an elected by divisive Islamist president in 2013.
Since Sisi seized power in 2013, authorities have waged a wide-scale crackdown on dissent and several potential opposition candidates have either bowed out or are facing effective bans on making presidential bids.
Last month, Khaled Ali, a prominent human rights activist, said that he would run against Sisi but experts believe he may be barred from the ballot over a controversial criminal conviction.
In September last year, Ali was convicted and handed a three month suspended jail sentence for allegedly making an obscene hand gesture outside court.
He has appealed the conviction, which would block him from running if it is not overturned.
Last week, a court postponed a decision on his appeal.
Further, last month, Ahmed Konsowa, an army colonel also announced his intention to run for president.
Konsowa was however sentenced to six years in prison last month by a military tribunal for violating a ban on political activism by active duty officers.
Meanwhile, despite initially showing interest in running, Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister under Hosni Mubarak, the president ousted by a revolution in 2011, has ruled himself out of the race.
On Sunday, in a statement posted on social media he said he wasn't the "ideal person" to lead the nation at the present time.
In the first post-revolutionary elections in 2012, Shafiq narrowly lost to Mohammed Morsi. Shortly afterwards, he left the country and continued to live in United Arab Emirates until December last year, when he returned to Egypt.
The Egyptian government has blocked hundreds of websites and has banned all unauthorized demonstrations since Sisi led the military overthrew of Morsi in 2013.
-- Sent from my Linux system.
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