AFP

Cairo

Egyptian leftist Hamdeen Sabbahi yesterday submitted the documents required to run in next month’s presidential election, in which he is likely to be the only rival to former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sabbahi is currently Sisi’s sole challenger after lawyer Mortada Mansour announced he was withdrawing his candidacy, although there is another day before the expected end of the registration period.

Sisi, who is riding a wave of popularity after ousting Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last July amid massive street protests, is widely expected to win the May 26-27 election.

“With God’s will, we will wage a great and victorious battle,” Sabbahi told supporters after submitting his candidacy to the electoral commission.

Sabbahi has surpassed the 25,000 signatures from citizen supporters required to officially register his candidacy, gathering 31,100 signatures from 17 provinces, according to his campaign team.

Sabbahi was accompanied by scores of supporters, who cheered him on and chanted: “Sabbahi is the symbol of freedom!”

They carried boxes containing the signed forms to be delivered to the electoral committee.

A long-time opposition figure jailed during the rule of strongman Hosni Mubarak and his predecessor Anwar Sadat, Sabbahi came in third in Egypt’s first free presidential election in 2012, a year after Mubarak was toppled by an Arab Spring-inspired uprising.

Controversial lawyer Mortada Mansour meanshile announced he was withdrawing from the presidential race and would support Sisi’s candidacy.

Mansour is known as a harsh critic of the activists who led the 2011 revolt against Mubarak.

The former judge, who heads Cairo’s Zamalek football club, said his decision came in answer to the club members’ will and after a “vision” in which he saw himself sitting in a bus with two military officers who told him “We are going to the new Egypt.”