And Then There Was One: Last Challenger to Egypt’s Sisi Drops Out<br />Mr. Ali, the lawyer, became a thorn in Mr. Sisi’s side last year after he won a court challenge<br />that nullified Mr. Sisi’s decision to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.<br />Mr. Ali quit one day after Sami Anan, a former army chief who had declared his candidacy, was arrested by the military on charges of forgery<br />and "incitement." On Wednesday Mr. Anan’s son, Samir, said the family had no news of his whereabouts.<br />Another potential candidate, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, the nephew of former President Anwar Sadat, said the pressure was so bad<br />that officials blocked him from hiring a hall in a five-star hotel for his news conferences.<br />The challenger, the human rights lawyer Khaled Ali, said a fair contest was no longer possible after a concerted government effort to derail his campaign by arresting his supporters<br />and frustrating his efforts to register as a candidate.<br />24, 2018<br />The last main challenger dropped out of Egypt’s presidential election on Wednesday, effectively clearing the field for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to run virtually unopposed in a vote<br />that is shaping up to be a referendum on his military-backed rule.<br />Ahmed Shafik, a former prime minister who came in a close second in the 2012 election, was forced to return from exile in December,<br />only to disappear into a Cairo hotel where he was held by security officials who pressed him to quit, according to his lawyer.
