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The spoiler on Egypt’s elections

The preliminary results signal that the Sisi era is here, but don’t discount the January revolution after just three years.
Egypt's presidential candidate and former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Cairo May 14, 2014. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general who ousted an elected Islamist president and is set to become Egypt's next head of state, called on the United States to help fight jihadi terrorism to avoid the creation of new Afghanistans in the Middle East. Picture taken May 14, 2014. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh  (EGYPT - Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS MILITARY) - RTR3P9BN

Former Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has achieved an overwhelming victory in the early (preliminary) results of the presidential election’s expat vote. The Election Commission announced that 318,033 Egyptians voted in Egyptian embassies and consulates around the world, which represents about half of those registered to vote. This turnout is higher than the 2012 elections, where only 306,000 voted, although the commission has this time canceled voting by mail due to fraud blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood in 2012. Sisi garnered 296,628 votes representing 94.5% of the valid votes, while 17,207 votes went to Hamdeen Sabahi, approximately 5.5% of the valid votes.

Sabahi’s campaign urged his supporters to stay the course saying that domestic voting will be the decisive factor in determining election results. As we predicted in a previous article, Sisi will achieve a landslide victory, and many Egyptians are already celebrating his “victory.”

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