CAIRO: A rights lawyer seen as the last real challenger to Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday quit the race to be president, the latest in a string of potential candidates to withdraw or be jailed, reports AFP. Sisi, who has ruled the North African country with an iron fist since being elected in 2014, earlier in the day became the only candidate so far to formally submit his bid to stand in the election.

Since December, one by one, all of his other likely challengers have either ruled themselves out of the race or been sentenced to time in prison. On Wednesday it was the turn of Khaled Ali, a leftist human rights lawyer who was seen as the strongest candidate still standing against Sisi following the elimination of two others. “Today we announce our decision that we will not run in this race,” Ali said at a news conference in Cairo.