Last 4 days for presidential nominations: Sisi & others reach finish line, opposition candidates battle to qualify as supporters face arrests, obstruction

One by one, the 2023 cohort of aspiring presidential candidates are reaching the finish line of the nominations stage, handing over official candidacy applications to regulators.

But with four days left until the door closes on applications and despite a change in campaign tactics over the weekend, opposition candidate Ahmed Tantawi continues to battle for a place on the ballot paper in December against security measures that still hinder his supporters from registering their backing for his candidacy.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s campaign, meanwhile, is reporting that over a million people have backed his nomination, with some members of the public already alleging they were coerced into doing so.

Regardless, on paper, Sisi stands head and shoulders above contestants, as he did when standing for reelection in 2018, although this time the incumbent looks set to be accompanied by a cast of supporting characters instead of the single forgettable opponent who took less than three percent of the vote in the last election cycle five years ago.

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At least eight members of Tantawi’s campaign were arrested while implementing a change in tactics to register popular nominations, which Tantawi recommended on Saturday that his supporters pursue due to repeated obstruction preventing them from filing their official backing at nomination sites, campaign coordinator Mohamed Aboul Dayar told Mada Masr on Monday.

The Interior Ministry said on Monday that it had arrested eight people on accusations of carrying 596 “forged” popular nomination forms for one of the potential presidential candidates and that the detainees had been brought before the Public Prosecution.

At last count, Tantawi said that members of the public both inside and outside Egypt had officially registered only 7,741 of the 25,000 nomination forms necessary for him to qualify as a presidential candidate before October 14.

In a sober address posted on his social media pages on Saturday, Tantawi suggested that given the escalation of obstruction to violent clashes over the end of last week, his supporters should sign forms endorsing his candidacy. The forms would be collected by campaign members and delivered to the National Elections Authority for authentication later. The new pathway, he said, would help prevent supporters being exposed to pushback on the initial route, whereby they would attempt to file their forms directly with National Elections Authority delegations at designated official sites.

While Aboul Dayar and the Civil Democratic Movement, a coalition of liberal, left and Nasserist parties, have asserted the legality of the campaign’s new tactic, the Interior Ministry said that signatures on the 596 papers it confiscated were forged and that among those arrested were the people who had printed the forms.

Since launching his campaign, Tantawi has undertaken public appearances and meetings, greeting crowds in various cities across the country in a rare effort to galvanize public participation for December’s presidential vote. But at least 73 members of his campaign have been arrested, while members of the public looking to submit official nomination forms to back his qualification as a candidate have faced escalating obstruction.

On Friday and Saturday, a number of his supporters were prevented from submitting nomination forms at a collection point in Lazoghly Square in central Cairo. Supporters of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gathered on the stairs outside the venue, its doors were closed, and a dispute escalated to incidents of physical assault on the opposition candidates’ supporters.

“Groups closed the doors of the office, chanted the name of the president and prevented citizens unknown to them from entering,” said lawyer Negad al-Borai.

Tantawi also said that he was assaulted by Sisi supporters in the city of Zagazig on October 4.

Similar obstruction blocked members of the public wishing to back the candidacy of Dostour Party head Gameela Ismail, with journalist Esraa Abdel Fattah describing scenes similar to those facing Tantawi’s supporters. “I was not able to nominate potential candidate Gameela Ismail. I could not take on the attacks,” said Abdel Fattah.

Ismail, who is also pursuing the backing of 20 MPs for her candidacy as an alternative to getting 25,000 endorsements from the public, is the only aspiring candidate alongside Tantawi yet to submit an official application to the National Elections Authority.

In a Tuesday morning statement, Ismail spoke out against the “systematic restrictions” faced by members of the public trying to register their support for her, saying that some people were prevented from entering the nomination sites and were “beaten and insulted by teams of thugs stationed in front of the doors.”

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With a decisive lead, Sisi submitted his official candidacy application to the National Elections Authority on Saturday, his campaign manager said. The incumbent president accrued 1,130,000 endorsements from members of the public in just eight days, the campaign said, as well as securing over 400 backers in Parliament.

Yet testimonies are already circulating on social media to allege coercion in the nomination process. One person recounted being stopped by police and having their ID confiscated, with officers informing them to head to the real estate registry in order to retrieve the ID. “I went there and had to sign a paper. I can’t read, so I asked him, 'What did I just sign?' He told me it’s for Egypt’s sake — signing for Sisi — then they returned my ID.”

Another claimed their neighbor was given LE200 to get on a bus and file a nomination for Sisi, while a member of the public told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that they were instructed to wait to file a nomination for Tantawi behind around 200 Sisi supporters.

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Set to fill out the prospective ballot paper that will be finalized by the authority on November 14 for voting in December, pro-Sisi presidential candidate and Wafd Party head Abdel Sanad Yamama submitted his official candidacy on Monday with 24 backers from Parliament, joining Social Democratic Party head Farid Zahran, who submitted his papers on Saturday with 30 parliamentary backers.

Aspiring candidate Hazem Omar, head of the pro-Sisi Republican People’s Party, is also anticipated to submit his candidacy by the end of this week, according to media reports.