Sisi loses turnout battle in Egypt's election
While Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to win in a landslide, the low voter turnout reflects the failure of his campaign to manage expectations and build a mandate for governance.
The first day of Egypt’s presidential elections saw turnout lower than expected. The authorities quickly initiated several measures to try to boost participation on the second day to bolster the election's legitimacy — and then extended the balloting to a third day while both candidates protested the extension.
Hamdeen Sabahi’s campaign was trying to capitalize on this situation with a “Tuesday is for Hamdeen” motto and hashtag on social media. After the extension was announced, a hashtag by some of his supporters started trending on Twitter, urging their candidate to withdraw from the race (although the legal deadline for withdrawals was long past).
The low turnout was partially blamed on procedural complications requiring Egyptians living away from their original constituencies to preregister to vote. Late last night, the government announced a number of desperate measures to try to rescue the situation, which would have required legislative amendment to be fully resolved. Tuesday was announced as a holiday and trains could be ridden for free for those who wish to go to their original constituency to vote. News also circulated that a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds ($70) on those who did not participate in elections would be enacted. The fine has been there for the past few years, but its legitimacy was in question since boycotting could be considered a political choice.
A leaked (or not) video was released last night showing Sabahi in high spirits and proud of the achievement of his campaign despite its limited means, and urging the youth who refrained from voting on the first day to support him and upset expectations on the second day. Can this swing election results toward Hamdeen and away from the retired Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi? Very unlikely. I still predict Sisi to win with more than 75% of the vote. But even such an overwhelming victory for Sisi may be unsatisfactory for many reasons. Sisi wanted a high voter turnout to support a number of sweeping economic reforms, radical changes in the Egyptian state’s structures and institutions and heavy investment in the meganational projects he talked about.
