On Monday, chief of the national elections authority Lasheen Ibrahim told a news conference in Cairo that in March 2018 Egyptians will cast their votes in the first round of presidential elections.

A second round will take place in April 2018, if none of the candidates in the running secures more than 50 percent of the votes.

The candidates' list has not yet been officially announced but is expected to be shared with the public towards the end of January.

"The provisional list of candidates and the numbers of their supporters will be published in state-run newspapers al-Ahram and al-Akhbar on January 31," Lasheen said, according to The Telegraph.

Before election season in Egypt begins, here are a few things you should know:

1. Egypt under Sisi hasn't been all positive news

Source: StepFeed

Former military chief President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi - who has ruled Egypt since the Sisi-led ousting of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 - is expected to run a second 4-year term, although no official announcement has yet been made.

Since al-Sisi took charge of Egypt, several violations of human rights have been reported.

In 2016, Egypt floated its currency, which was formerly pegged to the dollar. The value of the Egyptian pound was roughly cut in half, sending shockwaves through the Egyptian economy and crippling consumers' spending power.

On a positive note, tourism, a large part of Egypt's economy, is on the rise and experts have even suggested the number of visitors could return to pre-2011 levels.

2. An army colonel was jailed after announcing his plans to run for president

Source: Al Jazeera

In November, Ahmed Konsowa, an army colonel, "proudly" announced his plans to run for president in a 22-minute long video which was soon followed by a six-year prison sentence by a military court in Cairo.

"I have decided to unlock the current political deadlock," Konsowa said in the video.

The charges against Konsowa include "stating political opinions contrary to the requirements of military order", according to Reuters.

In 2014, the colonel submitted his resignation from the army, which was rejected.

3. Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq will not be in the running

Source: Wikpedia

Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister under Hosni Mubarak, recently announced that he isn't the "ideal person" to take on the presidential role, despite having shown interest in the position earlier.

Soon after Shafiq expressed interest in running for president, he left the UAE and returned to Egypt. Shafiq had moved to the UAE after the first post-revolutionary elections in 2012, which he lost to the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi.

4. Mohamed Morsi was Egypt's first "democratically elected president"

Source: Wikipedia

Egypt's Mohamed Morsi became the country's first-ever democratically elected president in 2012. His election came 16 months after the unrest across the Arab world which saw the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, former Egyptian military and political leader. 

At the time, Morsi expressed optimism in Egypt, saying the country had "laid the foundations for a new life, freedom, a genuine democracy." 

Lasting only one year in power, Morsi was overthrown by the military in 2013.

In 2015, Morsi was sentenced to "20 years in prison after being acquitted of inciting murder but found guilty of ordering the torture and detention of protesters," according to the BBC.

In 2017, the former president was again sentenced to another 3 years in prison on charges of "insulting the judiciary."