Sisi promises “To build it” in presidential second term

CAIRO – 20 January 2018: President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi announced Friday night his candidacy for a second term in the 2018 presidential election scheduled on March 26 and 28 inside Egypt.

The announcement came during Al-Sisi’s closing speech at the end of the three-day “Tale of a Homeland” conference, where the president and the Egyptian government presented an overview of projects and achievements made in different fields during the last four years.

Al-Sisi also showed his intention to run for president on his official Twitter account, calling on the Egyptian people to participate intensively in the upcoming election and give their votes to whomever they see most eligible.

“Allow me to announce my bid to run for the upcoming presidential term and what I hope from you is to show the world the scale of your participation in the presidential election regardless of your choice,” the tweet read.

Sisi, the sixth president of Egypt, swept 2014 presidential election with about 97% of the vote, following June 30 revolution that toppled Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Al-Sisi’s popularity emerged when millions answered his call to go to the streets and grant him a “mandate to fight terrorism” in July 2013.

Sisi was keen during his first term in office to rebuild the country’s state institutions and regain international confidence in Egyptian economy after it suffered severe deterioration due to terrorism and political unrest.

A public campaign called Alashan Tbneeha (To Build It) was kicked off in September 2017 to demand Al-Sisi to run for a second term as President of Egypt. It witnessed a remarkable turnout by citizens and renowned figures of the Egyptian society as the signatures phase of the campaign was launched.

The campaign collected thousands of endorsements demanding Al-Sisi to run for the office, with several campaigns starting mass conferences gearing to support the president.

A set of parliament members decided to join the campaign as well and sign the petition; parliament member Farag Amer described the campaign as a popular campaign stemmed from the pulse of Egyptian streets to demand President Al-Sisi into running for a second term.

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced in a televised statement on January 8 that the voting process in the 2018 presidential election will start on March 26.

Sixty million eligible voters will cast their ballots in the election on March 26-28 in Egypt, while expatriates will vote on March 16-18, said NEC Chairman Lasheen Ibrahim in a press conference.

The final list of the candidates will be announced on February 24, he added, noting that the deadline for any candidate to retreat will be on March 1. The primary results of the first round of the election will be announced on March 29, where decisions on appeals submitted by candidates, if any, will be made.

The final results of the first round will be announced on April 2.