CAIRO – Egypt's electoral commission announced on Sunday that the presidential poll will take place on May 26 and 27, with former army chief Abdel Fattah El-Sisi seen as the leading candidate. The election would go into a second round if there is no clear winner, but that outcome seems unlikely given Sisi's popularity after the army overthrew president Mohamed Morsi in July last year, and the absence of serious contenders. Meanwhile, an Egyptian soldier was killed on Sunday when militants attacked the bus he was driving in the town of Al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, the military said in a statement posted on Facebook. An army source told Reuters the bus was transporting police officers, three of whom were wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The Egyptian army, the biggest in the Arab world, has launched offensives against militants in the Sinai but the operations have failed to reduce the number of attacks on security forces. The violence has spread to the capital Cairo and other cities which also regularly witness demonstrations against the military-backed government. Security forces clashed later on Sunday with Morsi supporters demonstrating at the campus of Al-Azhar University, a common site of unrest in recent months. — Agencies
