Can a consensus candidate be found to challenge Egypt's Sisi?
Several political and civil forces have launched initiatives to select a consensus candidate to run against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the elections set for May 2018.
![EGYPT-RIGHTS/ Former presidential candidate and leftist Hamdeen Sabahi is pictured during a protest against restrictions on the press and to demand the release of detained journalists, in front of the Press Syndicate in Cairo, Egypt May 4, 2016. REUTERS/Staff - RTX2CTZB](/sites/default/files/styles/article_hero_medium/public/almpics/2017/05/RTX2CTZB.jpg/RTX2CTZB.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=ySM_Qu62)
CAIRO — Hamdeen Sabahi, a former presidential candidate, has called on political and partisan forces to establish what he called a “united national front” to select a candidate for presidential elections scheduled for May 2018. In a May 5 speech at a gathering to announce the launch of the Karama Movement — the unification of the Karama Party and the Egyptian Popular Current, which he founded — Sabahi said that the front must include national and partisan leaders and serve as a “revolution organizer.”
Sabahi severely criticized President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's government at the meeting. “The time has come for change and for facing an incompetent and failed authority,” he said. “Sisi’s regime has become a threat to the Egyptian state. It is the worst aspect of the policies that the people revolted against in the Jan. 25, 2011, revolution.”