Cairo — Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has a last-minute challenger in March’s presidential race — a staunch backer. Al-Ghad party chairman Mousa Moustafa Mousa, who founded a group that endorsed El-Sisi’s re-election bid, filed candidacy papers with the electoral commission just minutes before the 2pm deadline on Monday, state-run Middle East News Agency reported. Mousa entered the race after others either withdrew or were disqualified. But his challenge will not allay critics who say El-Sisi’s reinstallation has been a foregone conclusion from the start. The president, a former career army officer, was first elected in 2014 after leading the military-backed popular uprising that ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi a year earlier "It’s a half-hearted attempt that will not change much," said Riccardo Fabiani, senior analyst for North Africa at the Eurasia Group in London. "It’s a sham election, but they still can’t let it happen without someone remotely plausible as a candidate." ...
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