Cairo: The sole candidate running against Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi has had two showcase campaign rallies in downtown Cairo.
The first was a disaster. No one showed up except a few campaign workers.
The second, on March 11, was a slight improvement: 30 people attended. They held banners and chanted slogans, though the chants weren’t exactly resounding victory cries for their candidate, an almost unknown politician named Moussa Mustafa Moussa.
“Whether Moussa wins or Al Sissi wins, either is our president!” they shouted.
There is no question the general-turned-president Al Sissi will win a second four-year term.
Al Sissi was first elected in a 2014 landslide, riding on popularity after, as army chief, he led the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammad Mursi.
He kept much of that popularity while ferociously cracking down on Islamists and secular dissenters.
He has insisted stability must take priority over freedoms as he carried out multiple, large-scale infrastructure projects and implemented painful austerity reforms.
With those reforms, Al Sissi has succeeded in breathing some life back to the economy, though at the cost of inflation that has badly hurt many in the impoverished population.
Al Sissi has also made a name for himself on the international stage as a champion against Islamist militancy.
After the election, Al Sissi and his supporters will very likely try to get rid of the constitution’s two term limit on the presidency, said Paul Salem, a senior Middle East expert from the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
“It might be the view of Al Sissi and his administration that this is needed for stability for economic and security reasons,” Salem told The Associated Press.
Moussa, an ardent Al Sissi supporter, entered the race at the last minute to prevent the embarrassment of a one-candidate election.
An extremely polite contestant, he has avoided sounding eager to win, never criticises Al Sissi and in fact often praises him.
Al Sissi hasn’t bothered to campaign in person.
Instead, the streets of Cairo and other cities have been swamped in a tidal wave of billboards, banners and posters with his image declaring: “He is the hope.”
Al Sissi’s supporters have organised rallies urging the public to vote. Pro-government media proclaim that voting is a religious duty and failing to do so is “high treason.” Moussa’s supporters chanted at his rally that would-be boycotters are traitors and cowards.
In a speech Monday, Al Sissi urged everyone to vote, “whatever your political choices and opinions.”
Laughing, he told the crowd, “I love you, go out and vote.”
-With inputs from AP
