The third report on the presidential elections

Introduction:

In a big step towards the presidential elections, the National Elections Authority announced on Monday January 8, 2018 the full schedule of the electoral process, the first stages of which are supposed to start on January 20, and its official and final results will be announced on the first of May 2018, a time then the whole process has moved To a new box that will reveal the true orientations, intentions and preparations of potential candidates.

And Ali R.Grumbling about the opening of the door for candidacy after less than two weeks, but the political movement in Egypt is witnessing a state of stalemate that does not rise to the value of the democratic transformations that Egypt is witnessing this period, and is not commensurate with the importance of the differential incident represented in the second pluralist elections after the June 30 revolution, and the third elections After the January 25 revolution and the fourth multiparty presidential elections in the history of Egypt.

Between a state of political vacuum in the majority of Egyptian political parties, and the ambiguity of the position of many political figures who are likely to be nominated, there is a limited number of potential candidates running for the next elections, so that President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has not determined his position yet, which has sparked speculation about The identity of the prospective president of Egypt, while some movements emerged from the opposition forces in order to produce a presidential candidate who is able to compete with President Sisi if he is nominated, as well as hidden moves by the Brotherhood in an attempt to participate in some way in those elections.

The 2018 presidential elections come in light of the controversy over the existence of many guarantees that provide impartiality and integrity of the elections, after the formation of the Independent National Elections Commission stipulated in the constitution, which has already begun to exercise its duties by organizing and fully supervising the by-elections for the seat of the Jarja district after the death of one of the representatives. It is decided that the National Authority will start the first official step in the presidential election process by announcing the opening of candidacy and the timetable for the entire electoral process. However, some who wish to run believe that the guarantees are insufficient.

In this context, the Presidential Election Observatory of the Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights "Egypt 2018" issues its third report on following up the procedures and the environment surrounding the electoral process, as a continuation of the series of reports that the Foundation publishes regarding the presidential elections. The constitutional and legal framework has been extensively covered in previous reports, while this report deals with the most prominent potential candidates and the role of political parties in the elections, and talks about the guarantees necessary for the electoral process, as well as a reading of the current political, economic and security scene, as well as the Brotherhood’s position on the presidential elections, and the role of The National Elections Authority and its comments on complaints submitted to it by some potential candidates, in order to come up with a set of recommendations that may contribute to raising the efficiency and impartiality of the electoral process.

First, the most prominent potential candidates

Despite the approaching opening of the door for candidacy for the biggest event in the Egyptian and Arab arena, namely the presidential elections, the identity of the candidates running for the elections is not yet clear, due to the ambiguity of the position of many political forces whose names have appeared on the arena, and the desire of some to run in the elections, Only the position of the team, Ahmed Shafiq, was finally confirmed, who officially announced that he would not run in the race after he announced an opposite desire less than a month ago, and among others announcing their intention to run in the elections, the following lines deal with the most prominent figures that can be formally submitted with candidacy papers next February:

Abdel Fattah Sisi

He is the current president of Egypt since June 2014, when he obtained 23 million electoral votes. Supporters of President Al-Sisi believe that he has succeeded in achieving economic development and advancing the economy, as well as stabilizing the security situation during his reign, so that his candidacy for a second term as a continuation of what he started during the past years, and although all indications confirm that he is running for a second presidential term, he has not explicitly announced his candidacy. Officially yet.

Some believe that his popularity has been negatively affected during the last period as a result of the economic reform measures that have led to an increase in inflation rates and high prices, in addition to the decline in tourism rates and the lack of increased foreign investment, and some reject his candidacy for a second presidential term by the opposition forces due to the continuing terrorist operations and the blockage of the political horizon.

Khaled Ali

The candidate, Khaled Ali, has returned again to officially announce his intention to run for the presidential elections. He previously ran in the 2012 elections and was ranked seventh out of 13 candidates.

Despite his weak popularity among the masses of citizens, however, he has recently appeared as a party to judicial disputes, the most prominent of which was the Tiran and Sanafir case, which was a reason for his attention and gained popularity, especially among the youth and political and human rights elites opposing the current regime.

Khaled Ali announced the features of his electoral program, which depends on opening the public sphere and unleashing various freedoms, and he also took steps that are the first of their kind in the upcoming elections, which are the appointment of journalist Khaled Al-Balshi as a spokesperson for the campaign, and Hala Fouda, a university professor and Secretary of the Freedoms Committee of the Egyptian Democratic Party as the director of the campaign, which means He is taking seriously the completion of his candidacy.

Although he is a human rights activist and is known to the opposition political circles in Egypt, he has not gained the support of any movement or political party so far other than his Live and Freedom Party, which is still under establishment and has not succeeded in reaching five thousand citizens, which is the minimum necessary to formally establish the party in Egypt.

Mohammed Anwar Sadat

An Egyptian politician, and a member of Parliament for several sessions, he is the head of the Reform and Development Party, as well as the head of one of the most important development societies and he derives a large part of his popularity as the nephew of former President Anwar Sadat.

He was dismissed from the current parliament, and he is considered one of the opponents of the current regime, and no party has yet announced its support for Sadat in the upcoming elections, and he is generally inclined to the liberal trend.

Other names

On the other hand, there are many names on the scene, including Counselor Hisham Geneina, the former head of the Central Auditing Organization, as well as the name of Issam Hajji, who works for NASA, and who was appointed in 2013 as a scientific advisor to the President of the Republic for a period of 3 months before he resigned. However, the initiative that he launched under the name of "The Presidential Team Initiative", its position remains ambiguous.

Many people put themselves forward as candidates for the presidency, including Ambassador Masoum Marzouq, Attorney Atef Al-Najmi, businessman Mahmoud Ramadan, Dr. Mona Al-Prince, and politician Muhammad Mohiuddin. As for Colonel Ahmed Qanswa, who was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment for violating military instructions.

Second, the political landscape

Amidst a political vacuum in the political parties in Egypt, and as a result of the failure of most of them to get a party candidate who can run in the upcoming elections, most parties have tended to support President El-Sisi and urge him to run for a second term, in continuation to the president's achievements during the four years that are about to end From this standpoint, these parties came out to defend President Sisi as the only one capable of building the completion of building state institutions and facing internal and external threats, and these parties bypassed Sisi’s support to attacking anyone who wanted to run as a competitor to Sisi and distort his image, although the parties ’role is according to the political concept that It works to compete for all state positions, including the presidency, and to compete with one another in proposing various electoral programs, but due to the state of political weakness of the Egyptian parties, they chose the easiest path that provides them with stability, which is the support of the head of state, whose victory is confirmed in the upcoming elections.

In this context, a number of campaigns were launched to urge President Sisi to run and support him throughout the election period, such as the We Are All With You campaign for Egypt, Sisi's campaign for stability and development, and a campaign with Sisi for the harvest, but the most important of these campaigns at all is the campaign "To adopt it."  Which was soon joined by the National Future Party that adopted it, the campaign was able to open 168 headquarters nationwide to communicate with citizens in addition to appointing external sector coordinators in 36 countries,

Within 3 months of its launch, the campaign succeeded in collecting 12 million applications to support Sisi's candidacy for a second term.

The campaign faced many criticism by opponents of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as an attempt to charge public opinion in favor of Sisi at a time when his popularity is declining, and this campaign works without allowing opposition campaigns to collect signatures to reject Sisi's candidacy, not to mention the uselessness of these forms. Causing a candidate to win or lose, as the decisive factor is the ballot box in a secret manner, and not through the public and illegal signing of forms. The campaign is facing accusations that those in charge of it are businessmen and heads of political parties, who seek to offer loyalty to President Sisi, as a form of political hypocrisy.

This resulted in a number of lawyers and some potential candidates filing lawsuits calling on the authorities to issue a decision to prevent the distribution of the campaign form, and to address the executive and local authorities to administratively close the campaign headquarters and remove all their banners for practicing political action without a license, in addition to not starting the electoral campaigning period approved by it. The law, which breaks down the rules of equality and equal opportunity, and collapses with it the foundations of democracy.

On the other hand, the opposition has so far failed to unite behind a unified vision related to the presidential elections or a political entity that supports a competing candidate for Sisi, due to the lack of a realistic political vision and the lack of interaction of the opponents with the ideas presented, especially in light of the confusion of the general opposition in accepting Reconciliation with the Brotherhood or not.

After the failure of Mamdouh Hamzah's attempts to create a political entity from the opposition to support one of the candidates in the face of Sisi, a number of parties went to form a new entity for the same purpose under the name of the "civil democratic movement" and announced that it would not include any party or figure belonging to the political Islam movement that supports his idea, but this movement Since its announcement in mid-December, it has disappeared from the political arena, as the nature of the parties that make up it, which are active only for a limited period of time without any benefit.

  

Third, election guarantees 

At a time when all eyes turned to knowing the identity of the candidates for the Egyptian presidential elections, many political leaders who would run for the next elections came out, expressing their dissatisfaction with what they described as the abuse of opponents of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and that the Egyptian state does not want a competitor to Sisi in the upcoming elections, and from this point of view, The political forces took the move to put in place guarantees for the conduct of free and fair presidential elections. The first person to suggest such guarantees was the Egyptian space scientist Essam Hajji when he announced the launch of the presidential team’s initiative, and the last to talk about election guarantees was the potential presidential candidate, Khaled Ali.

Almost all the guarantees that the political forces called for were identical, the most prominent of which was ending the state of emergency since the announcement of the opening of the door for candidacy for the elections, a demand that the opposition took as an excuse to question the integrity of the electoral process despite the lack of official start of its procedures so far, and despite the importance of the state of emergency in The way to confront terrorism that Egypt is witnessing these days, but the declaration of the state of emergency alone did not prove its usefulness in defeating terrorism. Rather, it caused a wave of skepticism about the government's endeavor, headed by President Sisi, to conduct free and fair elections.

 The demands included opening the public space for all Egyptians to express their will to choose their ruler and hold him accountable, as well as releasing freedom of the press, opinion and expression, freedom of circulation and information, and canceling the blocking of press and human rights websites, a demand that has long been advocated by human rights organizations due to the presence of about 465 websites that have been blocked.

The National Elections Commission was also called upon to intervene to stop the open and direct propaganda of the current president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, represented in support campaigns calling for him to run in the elections, headed by campaigns “to adopt them,” despite President Sisi not assigning any party or individual to campaign to support him.

They also demanded the guarantee of the right of candidates and their campaigns to meet with citizens, spread their propaganda and hold their conferences, which is a right guaranteed by the constitution and the law.

There are also calls for the necessity for the state apparatus that participate in the electoral process to adhere to standards of impartiality and objectivity. Likewise, there is a demand to stop using public money to advertise for a candidate or against a candidate in an explicit or hidden way, which is one of the prohibitions on electoral advertising approved by the Presidential Elections Law in its eighteen article.

There is a call for a legislative amendment for the electoral campaign period to be between three to four months at least, instead of the 21 days stipulated by law, although no longer than 40 days separate us from the official start of elections.

There is also another requirement, which is to invite the media and civil society organizations to follow the electoral process.

 It can be said that there are good demands that must be considered in the extent of their availability, and that the National Authority must set them in mind and work on their availability, and there is a large part of these guarantees guaranteed by law, and it is not possible to judge their lack of availability except after making sure of this during the elections and practicing the procedures and applying the law on the ground.

 

Fourth, the National Elections Commission

In the context of completing its formation and administrative building, the National Elections Authority, headed by Counselor Lashin Ibrahim, moved to its new headquarters, which was chosen on Qasr Al-Aini Street in central Cairo, and held a press conference on January 8, 2018 to announce the voters' invitation to vote for the presidential elections and announce the details of the timetable for the entire electoral process. .

The authority said that the voters whose names are registered in the voter database are invited to cast their votes at the headquarters of the subcommittees, and the aforementioned elections are held outside Egypt on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays 16, 17 and 18 March, and inside Egypt, on Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesday 26, 27 and 28 March..And in the event of a run-off, elections will be held outside Egypt on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 19 , 20, 21 April, and inside Egypt on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, corresponding to April 24, 25, and 26.

The commission also announced that the elections will be held under full judicial supervision, and each fund will have a judge, and we will facilitate the voters, and that committees have been formed in the courts of first instance to transfer the electoral domicile from one governorate to another, and the commission has worked to bring the electoral committees closer and facilitate the transition to them..

The head of the "National Elections" added that the commission will not be negligent in applying the law, and we will treat candidates with equality and exercise their right to run for office..

The authority is moving to delete more than 2000 people listed on the lists of terrorist entities, in addition to the deceased, from the voter database, as part of the purification and updating of the database. Persons included on the lists of terrorist entities in accordance with Decision Law No. 8 of 2015 regarding the organization of lists of terrorist entities and terrorists are banned from voting and running in the upcoming elections for a period of three years. The elections are scheduled to be subject to full judicial supervision under the administration of the National Authority until 2024.

In the context of ensuring the impartiality of media institutions in dealing with the presidential election file, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation discusses standards for media coverage of the upcoming presidential elections, while drawing up a list of media violations and setting up a list of penalties for these violations.

In this context, the potential presidential candidate and head of the Reform and Development Party, Muhammad Anwar Sadat, raised an important issue that was widely covered by the media, noting that he had not received a response to the speech addressed to the National Elections Commission, on October 15-23, 2017, regarding guarantees and neutrality in the upcoming presidential elections. Noting that for two months he has been trying to reserve a hall in a downtown hotel in Cairo to hold a press conference to announce his position on the presidential elections,

Some argue that the position of the National Elections Commission not to respond to Sadat’s speeches and not to intervene to stop the campaign “in order to adopt it” that the elections have not yet started, and the commission has not announced the dates set for all stages of the electoral process, including the electoral campaign in all its forms, which means that a campaign should be launched. Adopting it and others is a political act away from the organization.

Fifth, the Brotherhood and the presidential elections

The Brotherhood is trying to cling to all possible cards to reappear in the political arena, and clinging to all strings that could lead it to achieve this goal, and despite the Brotherhood’s inclusion as a terrorist group, it has not stopped seeking once again towards the Egyptian presidency, despite the impossibility of achieving This is during the current period, but the Brotherhood has set its sights on several steps that represent a glimmer of hope to reach power, even from behind the scenes.

Over the past period, the group has been skeptical about the presidential elections scheduled for 2018, and directed its media outlets to claim that the Egyptian authorities are paving the way for President El-Sisi to win a second term, as well as overthrowing all opposition and harassing them for not competing with President Sisi, in an attempt to deliver a message to me. Knowing that President El-Sisi is the one closest to winning through elections far from fair and impartial, and at the same time the group officially announced its rejection of any upcoming elections, whether presidential or parliamentary, without the presence of former President Mohamed Morsi in his presidential position.

The group’s movements revealed the real plan that it will seek to implement in the coming period and from it

Joining the opposition and abandoning the leadership’s hopes for some time as it is considered the best solution during this period. The Brotherhood’s direct support for the opposition will increase the opposition’s ability to compete with President Sisi, and therefore if it succeeds in winning the elections, there will be specific powers for the Brotherhood under the new political leadership. Several opposition movements have emerged here that seek to form a front against President Sisi and choose a candidate capable of competing with him.

The last of the movements established last period was the “Civil Democratic Movement” led by Muhammad Anwar Sadat, Khaled Ali and Hisham Geneina, and many opposition parties and dozens of public figures that seek to create a strong competitor in the presidential elections. Soon, this movement was followed by its counterpart, the “Solidarity Front for Change” led by Mamdouh Hamza, who announced after his travel his intention to launch a new movement whose details have not yet been announced.

The group may move to push against a Brotherhood candidate who is not affiliated with the group, meaning that he belongs intellectually to the group, but independently, he has never attacked the army and the police, and he has not been involved in acknowledging what the group has said about the “legitimacy of Morsi”, meaning that this candidate is a civilian person. He has a clean political record, and he belongs intellectually to the group without declaring that. As for the identity of this person, it is unknown until now for two reasons. The first is that the group does not want to burn such a paper on which it will place some of its hopes for the coming period, and the second reason is instability within the Brotherhood about pushing for a representative For the group or one of the opposition's support, and therefore it is certain that the group devises a number of alternatives for the upcoming elections.

Sixth, the security scene

The presidential elections in Egypt come in light of a war declared by the Egyptian state against terrorist groups that have penetrated and increased their despicable actions after the January 2011 revolution, as a result of the insecurity, especially in North Sinai Governorate. In addition to the repercussions of the February 17 revolution of the same year in Libya, and the fall of the weapons stores that were acquired by the Gaddafi regime in the hands of the revolutionaries, which provided countless quantities of advanced weapons of various shapes and types, which were smuggled into Sinai, which caused the increasing presence of terrorist groups. And the peninsular in the peninsula.

The frequency of terrorist operations increased dramatically after the revolution of 30 June 2013, which caused the dismissal of former President Mohamed Morsi, and the circle of targeting law enforcement forces, mosques and churches expanded, so that terrorist groups revealed their true face and abandoned the religious curtain that it had always used as an excuse to justify their criminal operations. It is considered to differentiate between a civilian or military, nor a Muslim or a Copt. This has resulted in the continued imposition of a state of emergency in the country until now.

Law enforcement forces have succeeded in launching many preemptive strikes on the strongholds of the takfiris and terrorist groups, especially in North Sinai. However, terrorist operations have not stopped, and a number of attacks have taken place from time to time that have taken many lives of the people of the country, and perhaps the recent events that Egypt witnessed before the celebrations On Christmas and the New Year, it reveals the extent of the challenges that the Egyptian state still faces in the war on terror.

The security situation has become a pressure factor that individuals and governments exploit to put pressure on Egypt politically. The best evidence for this is the Russian plane accident, which resulted in the interruption of Russian tourism for more than two years under the pretext of insecurity. Likewise, the United States recently introduced a bill in Congress to protect Copts in Egypt.

Seventh, the economic situation

The presidential elections come in light of extremely difficult and complex economic conditions, as there is great popular anger at the high prices of goods and services, while the state continues to establish major national projects to provide job opportunities and create a suitable environment for foreign investment with an increase in positive expectations from international institutions regarding the improvement of the Egyptian economy, which is what Mainly reflected on the presidential elections.

The year 2017 is the harvest of the economic policies and financial reform plans that the state has pursued since President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi assumed the presidency in June 2014. The economic indicators in 2017 witnessed the inflation rate reaching its highest levels in 30 years, so the Central Bank decided to raise interest rates to reach 18,751 TP1T and 19.971 TP1T, respectively, to work to withdraw liquidity from the market, to curb inflation.

The Egyptian Stock Exchange achieved its highest index in 2017, which it had never seen before, whether in the volume of trading or the size of the registration of companies, and despite the economic challenges, 2017 witnessed the largest indicators of the opening of national projects.

Since the decision to float in November 2016, Egypt has attracted about $ 40 billion through investments and remittances from abroad.

Economic policies are the main factor that the opposition used to work to reduce President Sisi's popularity from 2014, even if he remained committed to popular acceptance that qualified him to win a second term.

Therefore, the economic and social conditions will have great importance on the course of the presidential elections, between popular acceptance of President Al-Sisi and the citizen's bearing of the economic and living burdens.

Recommendations

By reviewing the political scene in general, the movements of the various political forces and potential candidates, and what is being raised on the scene, a number of recommendations can be presented to the Egyptian state that would enhance the transparency and integrity of the elections, and give political guarantees that stimulate the active participation in the elections of candidates and citizens, and these recommendations are as follows:

·        Putting in place guarantees not to abuse the declaration of the state of emergency, as there are fears of using it against candidates and exposure to their propaganda movements, such as mass conferences, tours between citizens, and the use of various propaganda means.

·        The National Elections Commission took the necessary measures to confront the campaigns demanding President Sisi to run for a second term, as they contradict the laws and procedures governing the elections and the rules of fair competition.

·        The National Elections Commission reacts quickly with all the complaints that are brought before it regarding the presidential elections even before the official dates of the electoral process start, because the commission is permanently empowered with all matters related to elections and referendums, and the commission’s interaction with everything related to the elections enhances confidence and removes the atmosphere of suspicion among those interested in the process Electoral.