The talking heads covered an array of topics last night, including the latest developments in the presidential elections and the government’s efforts to curb illegal rice cultivation.

Hona Al Asema’s Lamees Al Hadidi was crestfallen over Khaled Ali’s withdrawal from the presidential race (which we recount in detail in Speed Round), and the fact that the elections will likely be held with one candidate. In a rare rebuke of the government, she blamed the state for wanting to silence the opposition and treating anyone who got involved in civil society or politics as traitors or members of the Ikhwan (watch, runtime 5:31).

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s campaign spokesperson, Mohamed Abu Shoka, disagreed with Lamees, saying the state is not responsible for the lack of candidates in the race and that “the door is open” for anyone to go through the motions. Abu Shoka also said it’s unlikely the elections will be pushed to allow more candidates to enter the race, since the vote must be held 120 days before the current presidential term ends (watch, runtime 3:45).

Kol Youm’s Amr Adib spoke on El Wafd Party’s near announcement of fielding El Sayed El Badawi’s as its candidate, saying that El Badawy might decide to resign from the party and run as an independent — and that he had initially offered to throw his hat in the ring to keep the elections from appearing to be engineered (watch, runtime: 2:56)

According to Adib’s sources, Khaled Ali had collected 19,300 endorsements before withdrawing from the race, while Sami Anan and Mohamed Anwar El Sadat had gathered 1,565 and 170, respectively. El Sisi, meanwhile, has upwards of 900,000 signatures on his paperwork (watch, runtime 3:43).

Over on Masaa DMC, Eman El Hosary spoke to Irrigation Ministry spokesperson Hossam El Emam about a government decision to reduce the amount of land for rice cultivation to 724,000 feddans from 1.076 mn feddans. According to El Emam, the move is meant to rationalize water consumption (watch, runtime 4:14).

Furthermore, rice will be pegged to global prices in 2019, according to head of the rice division at the Federation of Egyptian Industries Ragab Shehata. He added that rice farmers had been encroaching on more land than they were allowed to cultivate, and had actually sown 1.8 mn feddans of rice (watch, runtime 6:45).

Prime minister fully back on the job: Cabinet spokesperson Ashraf Sultan also told Eman that Prime Minister Sherif Ismail is officially back to his responsibilities in full swing and met with several ministers yesterday to discuss the government’s legislative agenda. On the roster are the Criminal Procedures Act and the Local Administration Act, among others (watch, runtime 3:14).

Al Hayah Al Youm’s Tamer Amin reminded his viewers that Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia are expected to meet sometime today to discuss the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, and prophesied that Cairo’s diplomatic efforts on the issue would finally bear fruit (watch, runtime: 3:00).