Egypt will hold a presidential election at the end of this month. But there’s little drama about who will actually win.
President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, who led a 2013 coup against the country’s first democratically-elected leader, is expected to be handily re-elected.
That’s because el-Sissi’s government has arrested or intimidated all viable potential opponents. The president’s only opponent is virtually unknown – and was actually an outspoken supporter of el-Sissi until just hours before the candidate registration deadline. Yet despite a wave of repression, there are signs of divisions in the security forces that buttress el-Sissi's rule.
On this edition of Global Journalist a look at Egypt’s staged election, and what it may mean for its future and its status as a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.
Joining the program:
- Michele Dunne, director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Sara Khorshid, an Egyptian journalist who has written for Foreign Policy and the New York Times
- Jonathan Moremi, an international correspondent who has written for The Daily News Egypt
- Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international relations and coordinator of the Middle East program at the University of San Francisco
Assistant producers: Taylor Campbell, Jonathan Mitchell, Blythe Nebeker
Supervising producer: Lauren Wortman
Visual editor: Jiwon Choi
