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.”

To understand why this is happening, we have to delve into the collective mind of Egyptians who see this as an opportunity to fix the country’s affairs while there is a popular and strong president. I was on Egyptian State TV twice this week, and in both cases the show host frowned at me for giving my analysis that Egypt has already decided and that the election would only stamp the decision with an electorate seal. One of the programs was using the theme “Egypt decides,” and I said that it seems that Egypt has “already decided,” which did not please my host. It appears that state-owned media are trying their best to show neutrality, especially since many analysts already doubt the integrity of the election process.

The reality is, this is the Egyptian way of doing things. Egypt is a country of consensus. It is true that there is a portion of the voters who support, or once supported, the Muslim Brotherhood. But that bloc seems to be shrinking, at least for now, and the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be boycotting the elections anyway.