Egypt's Sisi claims 93% victory in early results

Former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has won 93 percent of votes in Egypt's presidential election based on results from 2,238 polling stations, his campaign said late Wednesday.

In a statement, the campaign said leftist contender Hamdeen Sabahi won only 3.1 of the votes in the same stations while 3.7 percent of votes were invalid.

There were 13900 polling stations across Egypt.

Mixed messages about voter turnout continued to emerge on Wednesday as Egypt concluded its third day of voting.

Voting was extended for an extra day yesterday, reportedly because of low turnout, although there have since been conflicting statements about the extension.  

According to pro-government al-Ahram newspaper, the Presidential Elections Commission announced that the decision to extend the vote was a response to “large swathes of people” who had been unable to cast their ballots during the scheduled hours.

The technical adviser to the Electoral Commission told Iraqi satellite channel al-Sumaria that the extension of the vote was due to unusually high temperatures, which reached 48°C at their highest on Tuesday.

While no official results have emerged as yet, preliminary figures by the election commission released on Wednesday said that voter turnout for the first two days, had reached 37 percent. Other estimates, however, placed the figure significantly lower with opposition figures putting the number closer to 12 percent.

But Aziz el-Kaissouni, an analyst who spoke to MEE, said that both candidates would be uncomfortable with a turnout of lower than 52 percent, the level of participation during the 2012 elections that brought Mohamed Morsi to power.

Both camps, however, slammed the decision to extend the vote. In a surprise move late on Tuesday the campaign of former field marshal and presidential frontrunner Abdel Fattah Sisi announced that it was launching a legal challenge against the extension of voting.

The campaign’s legal advisor, Mohammed Abu Shiqqa, held a telephone interview on the satellite channel al-Qahera wa-l-Nas in which he confirmed that adding a day of voting at 18:30 on the final day is “completely unjustified.”

His only rival Hamdeen Sabahi also protested the decision, saying that the announcement of a third day of voting made the elections totally “void of democratic meaning” and lacked “even the slightest degree of freedom of opinion.”

Earlier in the day his camp issued a strongly-worded statement in which it announced the withdrawal of all its representatives in the electoral commission, in protest at what it called “violations that marred the voting process.”

Sabahi supporters and other Sisi opponents have widely accused Sisi and the interim authorities of rigging the vote in his favour. Many opposition parties have called for a boycott of the vote which began on 26 May.

However, despite suggestions he would step down in protest, Sabahi has continued to contest the election with his daughter Salma Sabahi issuing a statement on her official Facebook page on Wednesday saying that her father was continuing to stand as a candidate “for the good of Egypt.”

Lower turnout than 2012

In the last presidential election two years ago, which brought ousted president Mohamed Morsi to power, turnout stood at 52 percent of Egypt's 54 million eligible voters.

If the same turnout rate is achieved in this year's poll, it would mean that around 27 million eligible voters failed to vote, entitling the authorities to collect a total of some 13.5 billion Egyptian pounds from non-voters.

Egypt's electoral commission has warned in past polls and referendums that it would enforce a clause in the elections law calling for fines on non-voters.

Lower-than-expected turnout in the first two days of voting prompted electoral officials to return to the same tactic in hopes of pushing voters to go to the polls.

The Egyptian authorities could collect up to 13.5 billion Egyptian pounds (roughly $1.9 billion) if they impose a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds (around $71) on Egyptians who fail to cast ballots in ongoing presidential elections, according to a tally conducted by Anadolu Agency.