Assessment: In Egypt's election, the president's victory is assured. The question is what happens next

CAIRO - Across Egypt's vast capital, the smiling face of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi looms from billboards erected along major thoroughfares, from rows of posters affixed to lampposts and bridges and from banners dangling between palm trees.

Days before an election that critics labeled a farce, a few posters also appeared for el-Sissi's lone challenger, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, an obscure politician whose party endorsed the president before its leader entered the race hours before a January deadline.

But to the president's critics, the message is clear: Seven years after huge street protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and inspired "Arab Spring" uprisings across the region, the country has sunk back into repression reminiscent of the former strongman who ruled for nearly three decades.

Any credible contenders for the presidency were arrested or left the race soon after declaring their