Wafd Party votes against backing chairman against Sisi in Egypt’s presidential elections

Sayyid El-Badawi (C), head of the Wafd party, leaves the headquarters of the main Wafd party following a meeting with the party's supreme committee, in the capital Cairo, on January 27, 2018. (AFP)

LONDON: The Wafd Party’s higher commission voted on Saturday not to nominate party chairman El-Sayed El-Badawi as a candidate in Egypt’s presidential elections in March.
In a secret ballot 42 of the party’s 45-member commission voted against El-Badawi’s nomination, local media reported. The announcement followed a five-hour meeting in closed session at the party’s Cairo headquarters.
Earlier this week — and two days after the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi submitted his candidacy papers to the National Election Authority — El-Badawi had announced plans to run for election.
At that stage already all the candidates who had previously announced their intention to run, except for the president, had withdrawn their candidacy.
Meanwhile, a leading member of an opposition campaign that had been challenging El-Sisi in the upcoming elections, was attacked outside his home on Saturday in what his lawyer described as a failed kidnap attempt.
Hisham Genena, a former anti-corruption watchdog chief, had been working to elect former military chief-of-staff Lt. Gen. Sami Anan, the last challenger seen as a potential threat to the re-election of Sissi.
Anan’s campaign came to an abrupt halt when he was arrested this week and accused of running for office without military permission.