Interior Ministry provides wheelchairs around polling stations

CAIRO – 26 March 2018: The Human Rights Department at the Ministry of Interior provided a number of wheelchairs around the polling stations to assist people with disabilities and the elderly to cast their votes during the first day of the 2018 presidential election on Monday, March 26.

Also, the Crisis Management Center of the ministry deployed women's police forces around the electoral commissions to help the elderly and women with special needs reach their electoral committees and vote.

About 60 million Egyptians will cast their ballots along three consecutive days, starting Monday, to elect the country’s next president, in a race pitting the incumbent President Abdel Fatah al Sisi against El Ghad party chairperson Moussa Moustafa Moussa.

The 2018 presidential election is the third poll to take place in Egypt since the January 2011 revolution. Egyptian expatriates have already voted on March 16-18 in 124 countries.

Who are the presidential candidates?

The NEA has approved two official candidates for the 2018 presidential election:

Abdel Fatah al Sisi


President Sisi seeks a second term in office to continue the achievements that he made during his four-year term.

Sisi became president after winning the 2014 presidential election, a few months after he resigned from the country’s Armed Forces.

Sisi used to be Egypt’s minister of defense and commander of the Egyptian Armed Forces, under former President Mohamed Morsi who was toppled in July 2013 following mass public protests.

Born on November 19, 1954, Sisi grew up in Gamaleya neighborhood, near Al-Azhar Mosque, in a quarter where Muslims, Jews and Christians resided peacefully.

Sisi graduated from the Egyptian Military Academy in 1977, and then received his commission as a military officer serving in the mechanized infantry, and specializing in anti-tank warfare and mortar warfare. He became commander of the Northern Military Region-Alexandria in 2008 and then director of Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance. Sisi was the youngest member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt.

He was also trained at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Watchfield, Oxfordshire, in the United Kingdom, and the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Sisi was appointed minister of defense in August 2012.

Sisi’s first term in office has been defined by the fight against terrorism, ambitious infrastructure projects like the new Suez Canal and the New Administrative Capital as well as a wide economic development strategy which was launched in 2016.

President Sisi announced his intention to run for president during his closing speech at the end of the three-day “Tale of a Homeland” conference, where the president and the Egyptian government presented an overview of the projects and achievements made in different fields during the last four years.

On his official Twitter account, Sisi called on the Egyptian people to participate intensively in the upcoming election and give their votes to whomever they see most eligible.

Sisi is married to the first lady Entissar Amer and has four children; three sons and a daughter.

Moussa Moustafa Moussa


Moussa Moustafa Moussa is an architect, who ventured into politics at an early age as a member of the Wafd party.

Moussa who heads the Egyptian Council for Arab Tribes, became the chairperson of Al-Ghad Party in September 2005, following fierce disputes with the party’s founder Ayman Nour.

Moussa seeks to succeed President Sisi; however, he always praises the progress and achievements made by Sisi over the last four years.

An hour before the deadline of submitting the candidacy application to the National Election Authority (NEA) on January 29, Moussa’s lawyer submitted his application to stand for the 2018 presidential election.

Moussa received endorsements from 20 members of Parliament- the majority of them represent Monufia Governorate- to run in the 2018 presidential election.

Moussa’s bid came a few days after President Sisi submitted his candidacy papers to the NEA to run for a second term.

Born on July 13, 1952, Moussa earned a master’s degree in architecture from École Nationale Supérieure d’architecture de Versailles in France. Moussa is married and has two daughters.