Moussa meets Farmers Syndicate head in presidential campaign

CAIRO – 3 February 2018: Presidential candidate Moussa Mostafa Moussa held a closed meeting on Saturday with the Farmers Syndicate’s head Hussein Abou Saddam and a number of Arab tribes’ representatives.

Moussa’s presidential campaign announced earlier that the Farmers Syndicate and the Arab Tribes Council have voiced their support to Moussa in the presidential race.

An hour before the deadline of submitting the candidacy application to the National Election Authority (NEA) on January 29, Moussa’s lawyer submitted his application to stand for the presidential election scheduled to be held by the end of March.

Moussa, Chairperson of al-Ghad Party, received endorsements from 20 Members of Parliament- the majority of them represent Monufia Governorate- required to run the election.

Moussa’s bid came a few days after President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi submitted his candidacy papers to the NEA to run for a second term.

As lawyer Khaled Ali announced his withdrawal from the presidential bid, former Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik also retreated from the race, and former Military Chief of Staff Sami Anan was removed from the voters’ database, Moussa seemed to be the only candidate to face Al-Sisi.

President Al-Sisi has showed his intention to run for president during his 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 the projects and achievements made in different fields during the last four years.

On his official Twitter account, Al-Sisi called on the Egyptian people to participate intensively in the upcoming election and give their votes to whomever they see most eligible.

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

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.