 Presidential elections in Egypt are set to begin on December 10th. How has incumbent Abdul Fateh Al-Sisi established dominance? The Turkish Medical Association is facing yet another round of repression. Why is the government targeting this body of doctors and medical professionals? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, please hit the subscribe button. Presidential elections in Egypt will be held from December 10th to 12th and everything points to a third term for President Abdul Fateh Al-Sisi who came to power in 2014. Now, Egypt's condition is deteriorated on multiple fronts during the CC years. However, his vice-like grip on state institutions means that no other candidate stands even a sliver of a chance. The elections take place as Egypt also continues to play a role in the Israeli blockade of Gaza. We go to Abdul for more. Abdul, there's a lot happening in the region as Egypt heads for its election. But of course, Abdul Fateh Al-Sisi unsurprisingly seems to be the leading candidate, of course. So maybe first, could you take us through what is the general election scenario in the country before we go to his legacy and stuff? Well, the elections are scheduled from 10th to 12th. So results will be out on 18th. But the results are also, as you rightly pointed out, are well known. It seems that CC is a part of these four candidates, including CC. He is going to win the elections. Everyone, there is no doubt about it. There are other three candidates which have been allowed to contest against him. One is of course Farid Zahran, who has been active in whatever opposition is remaining in the country. He's the member of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party. And he has also been one of the active founders of the civil democratic movement, which basically is whatever, as I said before, the opposition is allowed inside the country. And he was the leader of that. So because of that, the movements in the country is also divided, whether they should by-court the election or they should participate in it. But majority of them, of course, are by-courting the election, have given the call. But a part of it, which earlier had decided to by-court, because Ahmad Tantawi, one of the major candidates from the left, basically was not allowed to contest elections. The endorsement, which is required when the army and the election mission in the country, there is the allegation that they force them and the people not to basically give the endorsement to him and therefore that led to ultimately him withdrawing from the candidacy. The other two, Abdul Sanad Yamama, is a member of the Vafth Party and he is, of course, the oldest party in the country, but has no popular base at this moment. And the third one is Hazem Omar, representative of the Republican People's Party. So these are the four candidates, including CCC, which are contesting. And of course, the campaign is ongoing. But if you see what is happening on the ground, only CCC is visible. The rest of the candidates have no visibility and it seems that the results are already decided. Right, Abdul, good time to maybe look back at what Abdul Fathal CCC has meant for Egypt. I believe it's 10 years now since he has come to dominate the power center, so to speak. So how do we sort of see where Egypt is under him right now? Well, Egypt at this moment, apart from the political situation, which is, of course, one of the worst in the world when it comes to freedom, when it comes to the right of the opposition parties, the human right groups, even the civil right movements are not allowed to function. There are thousands of activists who are inside prison at this moment. So apart from the political situation, for a very long time, the labor movement was not allowed to function freely. Even if the emergency laws were drawn a few years back, they are still not allowed to do the basic work which a trade union should do, strike is not legal, protests are not legal and so on and so forth. Even the protest in support of Palestine are not allowed at this moment in Egypt. Apart from the political situation, of course, if you see the economy wise, Egypt is also not doing great. In fact, Egypt is considered to be the second country after Ukraine, which may default and go bankrupt by the international monetary organizations. It is also running on the loans extended by the IMF and because of those conditionalities imposed by IMF, the state subsidies which were the backbone for the majority of the Egyptian poor are also gradually withdrawn. So Egyptian people, including the middle classes, are not in any good shape at this moment. The living standards are going down for a very long time. The prices of essential commodities are going up and amidst all that, the extravagance of the ruling classes, the military continues. So at this moment, both politically and economically, Egypt is in a very bad shape, but despite all those, if you see the performance wise, despite all that, there is no doubt that C.C. is going to be the victorious. And maybe he get more than 96% vote as has been the case in the last two elections. We should wait and see. Not to mention that he didn't bring about a constitutional amendment, which sort of further cements his hold on power as well. But at this point, I also wanted to ask you about what Egypt has become, so to speak, internationally, because we're also talking about a time when Egypt, for many years, Egypt has, of course, maintained that blockade on Gaza, which a lot of people are questioning right now. So how has Egypt sort of positioned itself internationally, especially with respect to some of the bigger players in the region? Well, there are contradictory signals if you read foreign policy in the last few years. Of course, it is one of the closest allies to the US has remained. So its military continues to get aid, whatever aid support, billions of dollars from the US. And since the military is, by default, is the ruling class in the country, of course, the foreign policy would be shaped accordingly. And that's what is reflected. So though on one front, it continues to support US policies and the reason continues to, of course, not directly but indirectly in a way provides support to Israeli oppressive regimes in Gaza. As you rightly pointed out, the blockade is imposed with cooperation with Egypt in Gaza. And but at the same time, it is the only source through which Egyptian, sorry, Palestinians are allowed to have some kind of humanitarian assistance. The Rafa border is the only border which is open and through which the aid, the essential aid is basically passing through. Apart from that, you also see that Egypt recently has also become the member of BRICS. It is going to join BRICS in January and that basically is a grouping which, of course, does not fit into the US calculations, not only for the reason for the global politics. And that basically, that's what I was saying that this Egypt at this moment is giving very contradictory signals when it comes to foreign policy. I think that is also a reflection of the larger condition in the entire reason. No country has remained to the traditional role it was assigned to because of the, you can say, interventions made by other confidence given by what we call the rise of China in the reason and across the world. These countries have started to some extent, of course, asserting their independence in foreign policy. And that's what is the reason I can read is behind this confusing or contradictory foreign policy which Egypt and other Arab countries have been following in recent days. Thank you so much, Abdul for the analysis. We'll come back when the results are announced. For a long time, the Turkish Medical Association has been a target of the country's government. Though the body is a pillar of civil society and has intervened in key moments as a forum of medical professionals, its independent position on issues has meant that it has been attacked relentlessly. Now a court verdict has dissolved the Central Committee of the Association. We go to Ana Bracar to understand the nature of attacks on this professional body. Ana, thank you so much for joining us. So we've been following the case of the Turkish Medical Association. We have talked about it in previous episodes as well. So can you maybe first take us through what is the latest attack that has happened on this important body of doctors and physicians in Turkey? So a couple of weeks ago at the end of November a court decided to dissolve the Central Committee, the Central Council of the Turkish Medical Association. And that's of course the outcome of months long legal struggle which the government through the courts has been waging against the association. We do know that the Turkish Medical Association is quite specific in this context because it's a very progressive organization. It has stood up for workers' rights, not only for professional rights but for the workplace rights in hospitals and the primary healthcare centers in Turkey for a very long time. They have also been very strong advocates for peace. They have never remained silent as Turkey was going through a very difficult period of time, continues to do so. So it's essentially an organization that has a very important impact on democracy and democratic life in Turkey on the right to free speech and has been working in solidarity with other movements for a very long time. And unsurprisingly because of that they have been prosecuted on different occasions. If we look back at a year ago, the president, Shepdem Kordur Finanje who is also a very respected doctor, forensic specialist was in jail, was imprisoned for statements made on a public broadcast essentially only calling for neutral assessment of a situation at the border with Northern Iraq and alleged attacks and use of chemical weapons against the people from the Kurdish movement. Right and in this context of course I think important to also remind our readers why the Turkish Medical Association is an important body. You mentioned of course one instance but can you also maybe take us through the scope of their work, what are some of the actions they're involved in? Why are they an important body for Turkey? Well, we can take a number of examples. Essentially they've been very active in supporting various initiatives. One of the things that has to be highlighted is that they were one of the first organizations to respond to the earthquakes that hit Turkey and Northern Syria earlier this year. So they were among those leading the response as the government and as the ministry response lagged behind. Of course, they were met with a devastating situation. They were talking about seeing their comrades in the rubble. They were talking about working in places that they knew from before and safe were not supposed to be built on and yet again you could find hospitals in those areas. So there's a whole spectrum of actions that they did in that line of action. But then on the other hand they have also been very vocal critics about the effects of commodification and of privatization of healthcare in Turkey. So this has ranged from collecting data about health workers who were applying to leave the country because of the devastating working conditions. Organizing strikes and organizing direct action that points out to what the years of privatization in Turkey have done to access to healthcare. Although it might not be such a hot topic to discuss and maybe it's not as present as it ought to be. And of course, if we look at years before they were... Let's put it that way, a lot of the members from the Turkish Medical Associations were also co-signatories of the Academics for Peace Initiative which led to a mass persecution of academics in Turkey just for supporting peace. So these are people who have been very brave over the past years. They have not been intimidated by very violent actions taken by the government against them. And even as the court has made this decision to dissolve the Central Council of the Turkish Medical Association, they have already said that they would not back out and they would continue to fight for what they have been fighting for before. And then finally, of course, maybe could you take us through what the global health activist community how is it sort of responded not just to this specific instance but the kind of solidarity and support they have provided in the past as well? Well, understandably, because we're talking about such a specific organization which is very well known around the world and specifically in these professional circles they have been met with, the case has been met with solidarity both internationally but also in Turkey, hundreds, more than a hundred of organizations inside Turkey have signed a solidarity statement with the Turkish Medical Association pointing out that a strike against them is not only a strike against the medical profession it's also a strike against healthcare, it's also a strike against the democratic procedures and how civil society is supposed to function. And then, of course, we should add that international organizations including physicians for human rights have also supported and have been supportive with the Turkish Medical Association for months now. And thank you so much for that analysis. We'll come back to you as more developments take place on this case. That's all we have in today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow for another episode. In the meanwhile, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on all the social media platforms.