Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi sweeps to third term as President with 89% vote

Cairo, December 18

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has ruled with an unquestioned grip for the past nine years, won reelection to a third, six-year term in office, election authorities announced Monday. He ran against three virtually unknown opponents.

El-Sisi recorded a landslide victory, securing 89.6% of the vote, the National Election Authority said. Turnout was 66.8% of more than 67 million registered voters.

“The voting percentage is the highest in the history of Egypt,” declared Hazem Badawy, the election commission chief, who announced the official results in a televised news conference.

The vote was overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on Egypt’s eastern border, which has threatened to expand into wider regional turmoil.

The North African country is also in the midst of an economic crisis, with monthly inflation surging above 30%. Over the past 22 months, the Egypt pound has lost 50% of value against the dollar with one third of the country’s 105 million people already living in poverty, according to official figures.

A key Western ally in the region, El-Sisi has faced international criticism over Egypt’s human rights record and harsh crackdown on dissent. A career army officer, el-Sissi, as defense minister, led the 2013 military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president amid widespread street protests against his one-year rule.

El-Sisi was first elected as president in mid-2014, then reelected in 2018. A year later, constitutional amendments, passed in a general referendum, added two years to el-Sisi’s second term, and allowed him to run for a third, six-year term. His victory in the latest election was widely deemed a foregone conclusion. In the months prior to the election, El-Sisi vowed to address the country’s ailing economy. — PTI

Ex-general accused of crushing oppn

• Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been criticised as a despot for crushing opposition lingering from a brief period of democracy, while winning praise from supporters for boosting security and driving an army-led infrastructure binge
• Activists say tens of thousands of people were jailed in the ensuing crackdown, before Sisi turned his attention to state and army-run mega-projects and development schemes