Pawn politics

"I am an Egyptian citizen who loves this country and believes that by its people it will be able to achieve social justice and a free democratic system," said Sabahi on May 8 in a live interview aired on Egyptian private television.

In a presidential race dominated by el-Sissi, the military strongman who led the ouster of the country's first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, media coverage has been slanted, a violent crackdown on dissent has continued and Sabahi has fought to be taken seriously. As Egyptians take to the polls on this week in a process that has been extended to Wednesday (28.05.2014), many say the presidential elections have underscored a breakdown in political life more than three years after the 2011 revolution.

The youngest of 11 children, Sabahi was born in 1954 to a poor family from Baltim, a fishing village in the Nile Delta. His upbringing surrounded by farmers and fishermen was something he says made him deeply aware of the struggles faced by the country's working class and poor. His campaign slogan, "One of Us," draws on his continued ties to this segment of the population.

Sabahi became politically active from a young age. As a student at Cairo University, he was president of the student union and made waves when he publicly challenged former president Anwar Sadat in a televised debate. Following his studies, he founded a multitude of political parties. His political activities and activism under both Sadat and his successor Hosni Mubarak put him at odds with the state, and he was arrested a total of 17 times, jailed eight times and tortured once.

The Nasser model

In 2012, Sabahi surprised many when he came in third in presidential elections with almost five million votes. Much of his support came from young Egyptians drawn to his brand of socialism modeled on the policies of former president Gamal Abdel Nasser, still revered by many in the country today, and his lack of ties to former regimes. This time around, he was also able to assemble an enthusiastic team of young campaigners who say he represents their revolution.

"All the people working on the campaign are here because we believe the future needs to be better, and we believe we have to work to make it better, to get organized, to get involved in politics," said 24-year old Ahmed Elenany, a member of the Supreme Election Committee of Sabahi's campaign.

According to Elenany, 80-90 percent of those involved in the campaign are young people, half of the 21 members of the Supreme Council are under 30 and the campaign director is 31-years old.

Other supporters say Sabahi, who has called for a civilian government where the army does not intervene in politics and who has long opposed the Muslim Brotherhood, is an alternative to the military and Islamist binary.

"I'm voting for Sabahi because I see it as an opportunity to show there is a third factor in the political equation, not just the army or Islamists," said Mohamed Soliman, a 23-year old member of the Dostour party, the liberal party founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed El Baradei, which has rallied behind Sabahi in the elections. "He fits for the youth and the middle class that revolted against Morsi and who condemn the current state brutality."

Just a sham?

But Sabahi, who supported the military overthrow of Morsi, has failed to convince everyone. In order to make the elections appear fair, his critics say a challenger to el-Sissi was needed to make the race resemble something fair and they believe the Nasserist politician is being used to give credibility to charade elections.

"[His candidacy] is just to try to show the world that [el-] Sissi is an elected president, but it is all fake. Sabahi doesn't have a chance," added Youssof Sahlen, a student at Cairo's Al-Azhar University and the spokesman of the Students Against the Coup Movement. "We are boycotting because it is a non-democratic system and regime. Democracy was demolished by this regime and we can't give it legitimacy," said Sahlen.

In addition, the elections have been overshadowed by a violent crackdown on dissidents and a media slanted toward el-Sissi.

"It doesn't matter if [el-] Sissi wins or not. The media is biased, activists are being imprisoned, political groups are being banned. How can he say the elections are fair?" said Ahmad Abdallah, a political activist with the April 6 Youth Movement and the co-founder of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, a group founded after Morsi's ouster and which documents and denounces human rights violations.

Unlike this years elections, the 2012 presidential elections included six candidates. In the end, they were deemed largely free and fair by local and international observers.

All over?

"The 2012 elections were completely open, even chaotic. The results of both rounds were unpredictable. Egyptians had an extremely wide range of candidates to choose from. The 2014 elections are different in every respect," said Nathan J. Brown, a scholar of Middle Eastern law and politics at George Washington University.

In 2013, said Brown, there was at least a somewhat spirited debate. "El-Sissi is not campaigning in any traditional sense. He has appeared little in person but only given a few interviews. Those interviews show him confident, in command, and ready to take charge - but also to be very, very short on any details. There is, of course, no reason for him to do so, since he seems assured of victory no matter what he does," Brown said.

And on Wednesday more signs that el-Sissi's victory was all but assured came when Egypt's presidential elections commission announced that the former general had won an enormous 94.5 percent of the votes cast by over 300,000 overseas Egyptians in 124 countries.

Still, Sabahi and his fervent supporters remained hopeful. "For sure, the state is biased toward el-Sissi, but in order to have a democracy, we have to go to battle, we have to try and grab our rights back, we have the ability to change it," said Elenany. "Every step we take is affecting the future of Egypt whether we win or lose. It's a win-win situation."