Voting began throughout Egypt at 9am Monday morning.
Current Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is competing against Moussa Mostafa Moussa, head of Ghad party. The voting will last for three days.
According to the National Election Commission there are 59 million eligible voters who will vote in 13,706 registered locations. The election is being overseen by 18,000 judges and 110,000 employees at thousands of polling stations.
Voters will ink one of their fingers as a sign of voting, a process that evidently ensures no one will vote twice. According to the Egyptian press, polling stations will be closed between 3 and 4 p.m. so the attendants can rest.
Egypt has a history of holding elections. In 2014 Sisi won 96% of the 23 million votes cast while in 2012 the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi won 51% of the vote. There are several small changes this year. The elections authority set up a new elections committee in Halayeb city on the Red Sea and its residents will participate for the first time. In addition two polling stations have been opened in Cairo specifically for workers in a construction zone. Polling stations will also accommodate disabled people and encourage women to participate, according to instructions published by the election commission.
Dr. Shawky el Sayed at Al-Ahram wrote a column Monday saying voters were going to the polls under difficult circumstances with the threat of terrorism. But they “insist on survival and growth of prosperity.” He urged voters not to give in to “negativity” and called for a high turnout.
Abroad, the election is being portrayed as a “foregone conclusion,” in some Arabic language newspapers critical of Egypt. Al-Quds al-Arabi in the UK is calling the election a “pre-determined” one. In the region and in Egypt stories about Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s interception of missiles from Yemen received more coverage than the election. Terrorists have attempted to strike at Egypt in the run-up to the vote. On Saturday a bomb in Alexandria killed two police officers and aimed at assassinating the local security chief.
