Egyptian Presidential Elections Will Determine the Countries Direction

Impact

It's been a little over a year since Hosni Mubarak was forced from power in Egypt as part of the “Arab Spring,” and in November and December Egypt witnessed its first free and fair elections. Over 54% of eligible voters turned up to decide who would represent them in the People’s Assembly, the lower house of Egypt’s parliament. Elections for the upper house, the Shura Council, soon followed in January and February of this year.

The president is the most powerful official in Egypt, which makes the first free and fair presidential election, scheduled for late May, a landmark event. Accordingly, the election has large implications for the future affairs not only of Egypt and the Middle East, but more broadly the entire world. Yet coverage in the Western media has (for the most part) been scarce, limited to high-level attempts at analyzing a very complex political environment.