World Bulletin / News Desk

With Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the cusp of winning a second term in this month's election, what's left of the opposition is reduced to praying he will step aside in four years.

In the run up to the March 26-28 election, a succession of would-be candidates were abruptly sidelined like doomed characters in an Agatha Christie novel.

"Watch out. That stuff that happened seven or eight years ago (the 2011 democratic uprising) will not happen again in Egypt... it looks like you really don't know me well. Ha ha," Sisi said in a January speech after his latest rival, a reserve military general, was detained for announcing his candidacy.

Such words play well with Sisi's supporters, including many Egyptians who have had enough of the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.