Preparations began in Egypt for the 2024 presidential elections, which President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is likely to run in to conclude his presidential term in 2030, unless the current constitution is amended before that date.

Although no official statement has been issued by the president or the presidency about President Sisi's intention to re-nominate him, all evidence indicates that he has done so, especially since all the talk going on behind the scenes of the opposition about pushing a strong candidate in front of him has not been officially denied, nor has there been a denial of the president's intention to renew his candidacy.

Although there is evidence of the intention to push a former member of parliament from the 25/30 forces [which supported the January 25, 2011 and June 30, 2013] movements to run in those elections, at the same time the elections are unlikely to witness the recurrence of the emergence of a candidate from the military institution, as happened in 2018 when Lieutenant General Sami Anan intended to run for the presidency, which is what It provoked many reactions from the authority, which referred him for investigation for reasons that he declared to be purely technical.

With this information, it is unlikely that the elections will be like the previous ones in 2018, with a candidate resembling a Doppler or an obscure actor, as happened in the previous elections when the head of a marginalized party ran and won 2.9% of the vote, in a ballot in which 41% of the 59 million people who have the right to vote participated, and the percentage of invalid votes was as large as 6%.

There is early talk about participation in the electoral process by voters, but it is not too early to talk about participation from the standpoint of candidacy. Although there is a non-marginal current that refuses to participate, and intends to call for a boycott on the grounds that there is no hope of holding elections in light of the tight closure of the public sphere in Egypt, which makes any elections a play to polish the face of power at home and abroad, many others intend to participate by not leaving the scene to others, even if the result is initially known, which is the victory of the candidate of the authority. They are still betting on the basic guarantees in which any free and fair elections can take place.

Required Integrity Guarantees

There is no doubt that one of the most important guarantees of integrity is that the elections are held in a healthy environment, even if the outcome is known in advance. The most prominent actions that achieve this are:

  • Leaving the stage for the opposition to hold conferences and meetings, conduct free electoral propaganda completely and on an equal footing with the state candidate, and most importantly reject the interference of state-affiliated administrative and media institutions, whether officially such as "Maspero" [Egyptian state television] or unofficially, such as some satellite channels, in the electoral propaganda of any candidate.

  • The role of the National Commission that oversees the presidential elections through:

    • Strict control over advertising spending, ensuring that any money spent by Egyptian natural figures is counted towards the electoral campaign ceiling [EGP 20 million in the first round].

    • Preventing legal persons from interfering in the electoral process pursuant to the text of Law No. 22 of 2014 on presidential elections.

      • Real censorship, not sham, to prevent religious institutions from interfering in elections.
      • Allowing committees of university professors, experts, and specialists to monitor media abuses in electoral propaganda, and not relying on judges because the matter is technical, not judicial, requires the observer to know the types of content, the ability to distinguish between news, advertising and opinion, and the way in which the language or space given is used to support one candidate at the expense of another.
      • The decades-long scene of the parliamentary presidential election has been followed by the bias of some media outlets towards candidates in executive positions, where their daily movements to open projects or do business are highlighted and sometimes exaggerated. The commission should be flexible in dealing with local and foreign entities wishing to observe the elections, by granting them the status of "observation" rather than "follow-up", in accordance with recognized international election observation standards.

The issue of prisoners of conscience and pretrial detainees remains a concern for many, and opening the public sphere through the issuance of a general amnesty for them and their integration into society will constitute one of the quick and inexpensive achievements of the Egyptian president before the elections.

Of course, there are noteworthy developments that make the atmosphere of the 2024 elections relatively better than the atmosphere of the 2018 elections, as:

  • The emergency law was repealed on January 25, 2021, assuming that political forces participating in the elections would have complete freedom to conduct their electoral campaigns easily and without being prevented or tracked.
  • Based on the previous point, it is assumed that the frightening appearance of the tanks standing in front of the electoral headquarters in 2018, which led to a high rate of abstention, will not be repeated.
  • The proposal submitted by the Board of Trustees of the National Dialogue in mid-April 2023 to amend the law of the National Elections Authority to ensure that judicial supervision of elections remains in the form of a judge on each box, as the Egyptian voter still trusts judges more than others to supervise voting and counting work.

President's Electoral Files

Regarding the upcoming elections in particular, and if President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi participates in them as a candidate, which he is likely to do, there are a number of important things through which he can achieve an unprecedented advantage:

  • Social effects of the economic situation: It is necessary to neutralize the impact of international conditions as much as possible on the prices of goods and services, and to develop a detailed time-indexed program to solve the crises of society associated with the successive devaluation of the local currency, the consequent increase in poverty rates, and insufficient increases in wages and salaries.
  • Reducing the rise in external debt: This debt in the past six years has witnessed abnormal jumps, most of which appear to be the result of the huge boom in roads and transportation, as President Sisi himself stated on Police Day, saying that this item alone cost the state two trillion pounds, which is practically equivalent to more than half of the external debt.
  • The file of prisoners of conscience and pretrial detention: Despite the existence of other important files such as agriculture, industry for export, support for the trade balance, and the revival of the tax base, this file continues to worry many. In other words, opening up the public sphere through the release of prisoners of conscience through a general amnesty, as well as the release of pretrial detainees whose detention has become a punishment in itself, and the integration of all of them into society, will constitute one of the quick and inexpensive achievements before the start of voting, and will be positively reflected in the outcome of those elections.
  • Reforms in the system of representation: by abolishing the system of nomination of parliamentarians through appointment, acclamation, or confirmation of elections by the absolute list system, which was abandoned by the electoral systems in countries of the world, which transformed the membership of parliament into a hereditary process.

    • Finally, it remains to be noted that eyes will remain on the outcomes of the "National Dialogue" with its 19 committees, to ensure that these outcomes are transformed into executive decisions and not just recommendations placed in the files.

    The upcoming presidential elections in 2024 will then become a real battle fought by competent candidates, and attested far and wide for fairness and transparency.