Sisi wins Egypt elections with 97% of vote

Egypt’s former military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi appeared on Wednesday headed for landslide victory in the country’s presidential elections.

Initial results showed Sisi leading with 97.7 percent of the vote ahead of his only rival Hamdeen Sabahi who appeared to won a meager 2.2 percent of the vote at 7:00 pm GMT.

The initial results come after authorities in Egypt scrambled to rescue the country’s presidential election from low voter turnout that had dented Sisi’s hopes for an enthusiastic show of public support.

Tareq al-Shibl, a member of the election committee, was quoted by al-Ahram as saying that more than 21 million people voted, or nearly 39 percent of an electorate of 54 million.

That was well below the nearly 52 percent in the 2012 election won by the Mohammed Mursi, the Islamist president Sissi ousted a year ago.

Few people trickled to the polls Wednesday even after the balloting was extended for a third day.