Sabahi does not respond to pressure to withdraw

The Egyptian presidential election candidate Hamdeen Sabahi did not respond to pressure from his supporters to withdraw from the presidential elections. Instead, he decided to continue his campaign despite the fact that his campaign rejected the High Elections Commission’s decision to extend the voting period until this evening. He called on his delegates not to go to the electoral commissions today due to his refusal to acknowledge the decision to extend the voting for an extra day, according to reports posed on the April 6 Movement’s Facebook page.

Despite all of the pressure to withdraw from the presidential race, Sabahi announced, early on this morning, that he will remain committed to his candidacy and said he will continue his role in the “blood elections play” after receiving a barrage of phone calls through intermediaries asking him to “calm his position in order not to expose the coup-led government’s shortcomings”, informed sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper.

He also said: “My sense of responsibility and duty drives me to present to you the necessity to continue what we started based on our belief in our right to take a democratic path to realise the right of the Egyptians to democracy despite the will of tyrants.”

In this context, the Director of Sabahi’s Campaign Information Office in Alexandria, Islam Al-Hadri, who is also officially authorised to represent him formally before the Higher Committee for Presidential Elections, announced he will be freezing his campaign activity and will permanently withdraw from the campaign due to Sabahi’s continued participation in the elections.

Dozens of the young participants in Sabahi’s campaign gathered in the early hours of this morning in front of his campaign headquarters located in Lebanon Square in the Giza governorate to urge him to withdraw from the presidential race in response to the extension of the voting period for a third day and the security forces’ arrest of a large number of campaign members.

There were many calls from Sabahi’s campaign urging him to withdraw from the “presidential play” which has already been predetermined to end in favour of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The hashtag “Withdraw Hamdeen” spread across social networking sites.

Sabahi’s representatives announced they would boycott the third day of elections and this was responded to by the presidential candidate, who said he would announce his final position during a press conference today.

In a statement yesterday night, Sabahi’s campaign said police released 14 campaign members who were arrested after a meeting held at the movement’s headquarters in Al-Matariyyah, east of Cairo, after the group put pressure on the security forces.

The statement added that the campaign members were surprised when they were intercepted by armed investigators while traveling in a microbus at midnight yesterday. The group were forced to drive to the El-Amiriya police station where they were accused of obstructing the road, protesting and cursing the Ministry of Interior. May of the campaign members were also arrested after documenting the breaches and violations witnessed during the electoral process.

Report by Ibrahim Yahya