Egypt to hold 2018 presidential elections in March

CAIRO - Egypt will hold its 2018 presidential elections from March 26-28, National Election Authority (NEA) announced on Monday.

"Elections of Egyptian expatriates will be held on March 16-18," NEA Chief Lashin Ibrahim said in a press conference.

Ibrahim said that candidate registration will start on Jan. 20 and close on Jan. 29, noting that electoral campaigns will kick off on Feb. 22.

Results of the first round will be announced on April 2, Ibrahim said.

In case of runoff, he added, polls will be held from April 19-21 for expatriates and on April 24-26 in Egypt.

"Final results will be announced on May 1," he said.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi took office in mid-2014, a year after he led the ouster of his Islamist predecessor Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against Morsi's one-year rule and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.

Sisi said in November that the 2018 presidential elections would be held in March or April as scheduled, stressing that he will not seek to change the constitutional limit of two four-year presidential terms, thus ruling out a third presidential term for himself.

Although he has yet to formally announce his candidacy for the 2018 election, Sisi is widely expected to do so and to earn a landslide victory due to the absence of competitive challengers in the presidential bid.

A pro-Sisi campaign said in late December that it collected over 12 million signatures of Egyptians, more than 11 percent of the population, supporting Sisi to run for a second presidential term.

Egyptian rights and opposition lawyer Khaled Ali announced in November his intention to join the 2018 presidential race.

However, there is a possibility for Ali's disqualification as he had received a suspended three-month jail term in September over an obscene hand gesture he reportedly made after winning a court order challenging the government.

Former Air Force Commander and ex-Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, who fled Egypt after narrowly losing to Morsi in the 2012 elections, announced from the United Arab Emirates his intention to run for president.

However, he announced on Sunday his final decision not to run for the presidential elections.