El-Sissi Achieves Landslide Victory in Egypt Election
Bianca Ortega | | May 29, 2014 08:51 AM EDT |
The results announced on Thursday by Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's campaign have shown that he has achieved a landslide victory in Egypt's polls, winning over his only opponent with over 92% of all the votes.
According to the campaign of the retired military chief, he had won 23.38 million votes compared to Hamdeen Sabahi's 735,285 votes. About 1.07 million of the votes were invalid, according to The State
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Although El-Sissi's eventual victory was not doubted, the former army marshal had hoped to achieve a strong result to justify the July ouster of former Islamist president Mohammed Morsi. Unfortunately, his nationwide turnout only reached 44% even after they extended the voting to a third day on Wednesday.
In June 2012, freely elected president Morsi got a 52% turnout in the polls.
Critics attributed the lack of enthusiasm to apathy among all the voters, because they knew El-Sissi would eventually win. Other critics said some were discontented with the former military chief, believing that he has no concrete solutions to the real problems of the country and fearing that he will follow Hosni Mubarak's autocratic ruling.
For the past 10 months, the Egyptian government and media had been showering El-Sissi with praises. They had painted a picture of a presidential candidate who was the only person capable of solving the country's economic, unemployment, and instability woes.
Sole opponent Sabahi protested the one-day extension, claiming it aimed to distort the people's opinion in the polls. On Wednesday, his representatives pulled out from polling precincts to protest what they said was a campaign of intimidation, but Sabahi himself did not withdraw from the race.
According to Sabahi's spokesperson Hossam Moenis, one of the campaign members has already been referred to an army tribunal.
Amani Fikry, a manager of a private firm, said the Egyptian citizens are "lazy" or frustrated, thus the lack of enthusiasm for voting. He added that they have become tired after three years of constant chaos in the land.
Morsi's Brotherood followers, along with other Islamists, boycotted the polls. Security forces quickly dispersed the scattered protests staged by Morsi's supporters.
Meanwhile, Islamists and other young people who participated in the anti-Mubarak ousting in 2011 had either boycotted the election or supported Sabahi.
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