It’s another morning of slim pickings for Egypt in the foreign press, with politics and the elections being the only common thread we’re spotting.

Election boycotts do not always work, Gail Buttorff write for the Washington Post in context of the opposition calls for voters to say away from the upcoming presidential election. “Some boycotts achieve reforms, some are ignored, and some inspire post-election protests that may or may not leave the existing regime in place,” Buttroff writes. She says “the potential effect of a boycott in Egypt is yet to be determined,” but that the “real test” for the opposition “will begin the day after the election.”

Although the boycott’s effect may very well be limited, the state is working to silence critical voices ahead of the election, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Sherif Mansour says. Mansour takes note of the arrest of several journalists for interviewing opposition candidates and the clampdown on “fake news” reports. Meanwhile, France24 joins the chorus with an interview with British-Egyptian filmmaker Omar Robert Hamilton about his novel, The City Always Wins, which was published last year.