Egypt extends presidential election for a third day

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Egypt: Egypt's presidential election was extended by a day on Tuesday in an effort to boost lower than expected turnout that threatened to undermine the credibility of the frontrunner, former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

After Sisi called for record voter participation, low turnout would be seen at home and abroad as an immediate setback for the field marshal who toppled Egypt's first freely elected leader, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi.

The two-day vote was originally due to conclude on Tuesday at 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) but was extended until Wednesday, state media quoted an official in the body overseeing the election as saying. The extension would allow the "greatest number possible" to vote, including Egyptians who need to return home to vote.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000122674/egypt-extends-presidential-election-for-a-third-day/

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1. Egypt election: Extended voting fails to turn out Sisi supporters

Egypt’s election went into overtime on Wednesday as the government sought to drum up more votes for former military chief Abdel Fattah Sisi, but turnout again appeared lackluster on the hastily added third day of polling.

Sisi’s victory remained virtually certain, but his backers had wanted badly to better the 52% turnout in 2012, when Islamist Mohamed Morsi became Egypt’s first freely elected president. The figure reported by the main election body after two days of polling fell considerably short of that -- an estimated 37%.

The relatively low turnout has been a blow to the Sisi camp, which had hoped a strong turnout would put a seal of legitimacy on the leadership of the former defense chief. Sisi deposed Morsi in July after enormous protests demanding an end to his rule.

The move to extend the voting drew criticism from at least one election observer group, the U.S.-based Democracy International. It said the step “raises more questions about the independence of the election commission, the impartiality of the government and the integrity of Egypt’s electoral process.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-election-low-turnout-20140528-story.html#navtype=outfit

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2. Egypt's Sisi wins election, faces economic challenges

(Reuters) - Former Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won a landslide victory in a presidential election on Thursday but a low turnout may have deprived him of the strong mandate he needs to fix the economy and face down an Islamist insurgency.

Sisi won 93.3 percent of votes cast, judicial sources said, with most ballots counted after three days of voting. His only rival, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, gained 3 percent while 3.7 percent of votes were declared void.

But a lower-than-expected turnout figure raised questions about the credibility of a man idolised by his supporters as a hero who can deliver stability.

The stakes are high for Sisi in a country where street protests have helped topple two presidents in three years.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/29/us-egypt-election-idUSKBN0E70D720140529

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3. Sisi's crushing presidential election in Egypt undercut by turnout

Victory celebrations erupted Thursday among backers of Abdel Fattah Sisi, who won election as Egypt’s next president by a massive margin, according to tallies reported by official media and released by his campaign.

But the landslide win -- with Sisi garnering about 93% of the vote, according to an unofficial count cited by state outlets -- was soured by a turnout lower than his camp had hoped for, pointing to a wellspring of anger, mistrust or apathy among a large chunk of the electorate.

Moreover, Sisi’s strongman image took a battering by the seemingly desperate measures the government took to badger voters into casting a ballot -- keeping the polls open an extra day, declaring an impromptu national holiday, threatening substantial fines for those who stayed away and providing free transport to voters’ home districts. As many polling stations stood nearly empty, pro-military talk-show hosts unleashed a torrent of invective at “traitors” who failed to vote.

The unofficial turnout figure, which election officials said rose to 47.3% after the added-on voting day, prompted skepticism in some quarters. Sisi’s lone opponent, Hamdeen Sabahi, withdrew his polling monitors on the last day of voting to protest the extension, and said that without them in place, the results, including the turnout figures, were suspect.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-egypt-election-sisi-victory-20140529-story.html#navtype=outfit