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Egyptians head to the polls on Monday to elect a new parliament, which critics say will only further cement President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s grip on power.The opening of polling stations at 9:00 am (0700 GMT) marks the start of a weeks-long process to fill 568 of the 596 seats in the lower house, with some provinces not voting for another two weeks.The remaining 28 lawmakers will be appointed directly by Sisi, the former army chief who seized power after ousting late Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.Egyptians abroad cast their ballots on Friday and Saturday. In regions such as Alexandria, voters have until Tuesday to cast their ballots in a first round. Some regions including Cairo will not vote until November 24.Final results are expected by December 25.Half of the seats will be filled through closed party lists and the other half by individual candidates, with a quarter of the seats reserved for women.The parliamentary vote comes more than two months after elections for the senate, the upper chamber, which saw a low turnout of about 17 percent.The pro-government “National List for Egypt” coalition swept that vote, running unopposed in the party list race.The coalition is expected to dominate again.- Crackdown on dissent -The pro-Sisi Mostaqbal Watan (Nation’s Future) party and the National Front party — headed by former minister Essam al-Gazzar — lead the 12-member coalition.Gazzar’s newly formed party brings together former government officials and has the financial backing of business tycoon Ibrahim al-Organi, a close Sisi ally.Opposition groups, meanwhile, remain divided. Some parties are running independently while others have joined pro-government lists.Analysts said the timing of the elections gives them unusual weight as they will be the last before Sisi’s third and final term ends in 2030.”Sisi needs a parliament he can fully control,” Timothy Kaldas of the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, told AFP.”If he wants to stay in power beyond 2030, it’s this next parliament that would have to initiate any constitutional changes to make that possible,” he said.Under the 2019 constitutional amendments, Sisi’s term was extended from four to six years and his previous term was retroactively counted as his first, allowing him to stay in office until 2030.Sisi’s administration, long maligned for its rights record, launched a national dialogue in 2022 in an apparent overture to the country’s decimated opposition. But the years since have seen a widening crackdown on dissent, according to rights groups, who estimate that tens of thousands of political prisoners remain behind bars.

In a fitness studio in Saudi Arabia, dozens of women sway to Arabic music as they practise belly dancing — an activity that many feel compelled to keep secret.Despite their enthusiasm, none of them would give their real name or show their faces on camera, underlining the stigma and cultural prejudices surrounding the ancient dance.In Arab communities, belly dancing has played many roles. It is a form of artistic expression, popular entertainment and a staple of classic Egyptian cinema.More recently, many women around the world have taken it up as a group fitness routine and form of empowering self-expression.But in Saudi Arabia, even closed-door all-female sessions remain taboo.”We’re a conservative society,” one participant said. “Belly dancing is seen as something sexy, and no family or husband would accept that men see you like that.”It took AFP months to gain access to the class in Riyadh, a fiercely private affair where identities were strictly guarded.Most of the participants said they feared how their families and friends would react.”I won’t tell my family… out of respect for their dignity — they’re elderly,” the same participant, said on condition of anonymity.It is a reminder of the deep-seated conservatism that still prevails in Saudi Arabia, despite a roll-back of social strictures in recent times.Chief among the women’s concerns is that their families will see images of them dancing. Phone use is carefully monitored by the gym staff.”Someone might harm me and record me, so there is always fear,” one dancer said.Another said she could not tell her father she enjoyed belly dancing, knowing he would never accept it.- ‘Sense of modesty’ -Saudi Arabia is the cradle of the austere Sunni doctrine known as Wahhabism, which embraces a strict interpretation of Islamic law.Under its 40-year-old de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom has loosened its arch-conservatism, allowing women to drive and shed their veils.But cultural traditions remain and belly dancing, despite being a centuries-old art form, retains the stigma of being too suggestive.To some, the dance with its revealing costumes and glittering sequins is linked to prostitution, but at the class in Riyadh the women are dancing for fitness and themselves.The two instructors do not describe themselves as dancers, but coaches. They play up the fitness benefits.”We’ve transformed dancing into a sport,” said one of them, calling herself Oni, the name she uses when sharing dance videos on social media — where she also hides her face.”Saudis love to enjoy, have fun and appreciate life, but always within the boundaries of our religion and our sense of modesty,” added Oni.- Female empowerment -Around her, dancers of all ages shook their hips to Arabic music, shimmying barefoot as a woman with a neck tattoo played the derbake, a traditional drum.The atmosphere was festive, like a “women-only party”, said another instructor, who also gave only her alias, Roro.”All of us have fun and it’s considered to be stress relief,” she said.Yoga studios and boxing gyms catering to women, as well as belly dancing classes, have sprouted around the capital — a far cry from the days when they were banned from sport.Gyms and studios continue to be strictly divided along gender lines, with men and women prevented from exercising together. Belly dancing, which originated outside the Arabian Peninsula, is “a bit more provocative than regional dance”, said Lisa Urkevich, professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at Georgetown University.”So one’s family may not want a girl to dance it at all at an event,” she told AFP.But Saudi Arabia is a large, diverse country and, she added, “even among families themselves there are different perspectives on women and dance”.The instructors told AFP they viewed dancing as more than a pastime or a way of keeping fit.Classes are “deeply committed to female empowerment” and helping women feel confident, Oni said.”Dance fosters those feelings — it brings a sense of community and strength.”

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa is to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday for unprecedented talks just days after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist.Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, will be the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was itself only delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July.Since taking power, Syria’s new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a more moderate image to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.Sharaa’s White House visit is “a hugely symbolic moment for the country’s new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman,” said Michael Hanna, US program director at the International Crisis Group.The interim president met Trump for the first time in Saudi Arabia during the US leader’s regional tour in May.After his arrival in Washington, Sharaa over the weekend met with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva over possible aid for the war-wrecked country, and with representatives from Syrian organizations.Washington’s envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa may on Monday sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus “to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel,” a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.The State Department’s decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa’s government had been meeting US demands on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.”These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime,” Pigott said.On Saturday, the Syrian interior ministry announced that it had carried out 61 raids and made 71 arrests in a “proactive campaign to neutralize the threat” of IS, according to the official SANA news agency.It said the raids targeted locations where IS sleeper cells remain, including Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Damascus.Sharaa’s Washington trip comes after he visited the United Nations in September — his first time on US soil — where the ex-jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.Last week Washington led a vote by the Security Council to remove UN sanctions against him.Sharaa is expected to seek US funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of civil war.In October, the World Bank put a “conservative best estimate” of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion. mam-at-burs/bgs/iv