Last night, in an interview aired on the CBC channel, leftist politician, Hamdeen Sabahi, declared he would run in the upcoming presidential election. He claimed that he is not seeking power, but believes it is his national duty to run.

"Agreeing over an electoral program that expresses the goals of the revolution is a priority; if the people agree on another candidate, then it would honour me to back him," said the former presidential candidate.

Hamdeen Sabahi, founder of the Popular Current movement, finished third in the last election, just narrowly missing the chance to be in the run-off election that followed. One can only imagine where Egypt would be today if we hadn’t settled on Morsi.

During the interview, Sabahi acknowledged and praised the efforts of Defence Minister, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, and suggested that “it is better that he stays in his post as an army leader”, but would respect Sisi's decision to run for presidency if he decided to do so.

This announcement will probably open the flood gates of presidential hopefuls declaring their intentions to run. Hopefully we learn a lesson from last time, and realize that no leftist candidate can win when running against a number of other left leading candidates. If this remains the case, we will end up with the same run-off election between a military backed candidate and an Islamist.