Former military chief Sisi is Egypt's new president | Arab Herald

Former military chief Sisi is Egypt's new president

Arab Herald Thursday 29th May, 2014

• Results to be confirmed Sunday or Monday

• The ex-army chief's victory over rival Sabahi is certain

• Sisi wins 96 percent of the presidential vote; rival Sabahy wins 4.7 percent

CAIRO, Egypt - Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the former Egyptian military chief who toppled Mohamed Morsi's government last year, will be the next president of the country after he won an overwhelming majority of nearly 96 percent Egyptian voters, according to provisional results Thursday.

The election that saw nearly 23 million voters casting their ballots for Sisi gave his only contender, leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, a humble 3.5 percent, with less than 800,000 votes, according to data from the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research, and the Egyptian TV channel MBC Masr.

But more surprising in the presidential voting was the number of invalidated ballots that exceeded one million. That triggered social media jokes that Sabahi and the invalid votes were competing for second place in the election.

The results announced Thursday by the judges supervising polling centres across the country, will be verified and then announced by the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC), the judicial body overseeing the election.

Egypt's state-run Ahram Online news agency reported that the final results will be announced either Sunday or Monday.

Sisi's electoral victory was on predicted lines amid a low turnout of voters in the polls this week. Officials added a third day of voting Wednesday in an attempt to boost the turnout.

As unofficial results were declared, Egyptians took to the streets to celebrate Sisi's victory. His supporters flashed his campaign posters and took procession that brought traffic to a standstill at many places.

A spokesman for Sisi's campaign thanked the "Egyptian people for putting their trust in Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi".

MBC Masr quoted spokesman Abdallah El-Moghazy as saying that the former military chief's campaign didn't need the additional day of voting, citing the Sisi's sweeping victory.

Egypt has been reeling under a political turmoil after former president Morsy was ousted from power in July last year in a popular military coup.

Al-Sisi, who was army chief at the time, stepped down from his military post this year to run for president. He has presided over a bloody crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement in which more than 1,400 people have been killed and 16,000 detained. Many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders and activists have either been sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

The Brotherhood said it boycotted the vote. Many liberal and secular activist groups also followed the suit.

The presidential election was the second since Jan 25, 2011, uprising that led to the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak.

The first democratically elected government came to power in 2012 with the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi at its head. Morsi had secured 52 percent, just over 13 million votes, in the first election.