Egyptian rights lawyer Khaled Ali withdraws his bid for the 2018 presidential elections, he announced at a press conference on Wednesday. This leaves sitting President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the only candidate officially having submitted their candidacy documents to the National Elections Authority. Presidential hopefuls must submit the required documents to the Authority before January 29 in order to be eligible for participation in the elections. Ali started the press conference with a moment of silence in honour of the Egyptian revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. He cited multiple violations targeting his presidential campaign saying that “the presidential race exhausted its subjects before it even started”. He further added that the lack of a democratic process has been evident in the act of mobilizing people in administrative offices to support al-Sisi in exchange for money. “The National Elections Authority denied our right to give us a clear number of those who nominated our campaign,” added Ali. Ali further spoke about violations committed against other candidates, in reference to Sami Anan’s ban from running in Egypt’s presidential elections. “The current ‘political crisis’ shows the impact of the developments of the electoral process which…
