Egyptian Army Chief Likely Becomes TIME’s Person Of 2013

Egyptian top army general Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has been shortlisted for TIME magazine’s Person of Year. The vote is for the person that the readers think most influenced the news this year for better or worse.

The  Egyptian defense minister spearheaded the controversial removal of democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi in July this year.

Voting will be closed at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 4, and the combined winner of the polls will be announced on Dec. 6. TIME’s Person of the Year will be announced Dec. 11.

Last year Morsi won the coveted title and cover page. The magazine wrote about Morsi that he was in a position that allowed him to reshape the future of the Middle East region. This year, instead of Morsi being nominated the Egyptians have turned to their new leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

42 prominent figures are included in TIME’s poll for this year, like US President Barack Obama, NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani – who went on to make historic diplomatic overtures to the U.S. that led to a deal on Iran’s nuclear program; Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Syrian President Bashar Assad – who headed the country over a bloody year shrugging off international concerns over the use of chemical weapons as the death toll of his country’s civil war eclipsed 100,000; and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.