Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has swept to a third term as Egypt’s president in an election where he faced no serious challengers, election authorities said yesterday, and he called the vote a rejection of the “inhumane war” in neighbouring Gaza.
The election, in which he took 89.6 per cent of the vote according to the National Election Authority, was held as Egypt tries to manage the risk of spillover from the war adjacent to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Some voters said the eruption of conflict in Gaza had encouraged them to vote for Sisi, who has long presented himself as a bulwark of stability in a volatile region – an argument that has also proved effective with Gulf and Western allies providing financial support to his government.
“Egyptians lined up to vote not just to choose their president for the next term, but to express their rejection of this inhumane war to the entire world,” Sisi said in a speech soon after the results were announced.
He said Egypt had to do all it could to stop the war between Israel and Hamas, describing it as his country’s primary challenge.
Israel’s heavy bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip, after a Hamas assault into Israel, has flattened much of the enclave and left most of its people homeless. Egypt has warned it will not allow any cross-border exodus of Gazans.
Voting in Egypt was held on December 10-12, with the state and tightly controlled domestic media pushing hard to boost turnout, which the election authority said had reached 66.8pc – above the 41pc recorded at the last presidential election in 2018.
The election featured three other candidates, none of them high profile. The most prominent potential challenger halted his run in October.
Egypt’s state media body said the vote was a step towards political pluralism and authorities have denied violations of electoral rules.
Sisi, a former general, was elected to the presidency in 2014, and re-elected in 2018, both times with 97pc of the vote. The constitution was amended in 2019, extending the presidential term to six years from four, and allowing Sisi to stand for a third term.
Some admire an infrastructure drive including a new capital built from scratch in the desert east of Cairo. “I renew my pact with you, to together exert every effort to continue building the new republic, that we hope to erect according to a shared vision,” Sisi said in a taped speech aired on state television.
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