Many Egyptians failed to vote in the presidential election yesterday despite official efforts to boost turnout with an extra day of polling, raising doubts about the level of support for the man still forecast to win, former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
A low turnout would sound a warning to al-Sisi that he had failed to achieve the resounding mandate he sought after toppling Egypt’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, following street protests last year.
A tour of Cairo polling stations yesterday suggested authorities would again struggle to get more people to cast their ballots.
Photo: Reuters
The same pattern emerged in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, reporters said.
In a country polarized since a popular uprising toppled former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the low turnout was linked to political apathy, opposition to another military man becoming president, discontent at suppression of freedoms among liberal youth and calls for a boycott by Islamists.
After months of adulation by the media encouraged by his supporters in government, the security services and business, many Egyptians were shocked when the election failed to produce mass support for al-Sisi, who had called for a turnout of 40 million, or 80 percent of the electorate.
Photo: Reuters
The two-day vote was originally due to conclude on Tuesday, but was extended until 9pm yesterday to allow the “greatest number possible” to vote, state media reported.
The campaign of al-Sisi’s sole opponent, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, protested the extension, saying it aimed to “distort” the will of the people. His campaign also pulled its representatives from polling stations in protest against what it called intimidation and sometimes arrests of its campaign workers.
Even the generally pro-al-Sisi daily al-Masry al-Youm appeared to rub salt into the wound.
“The state is looking for a vote,’’ the red-lettered front-page headline in the privately owned paper said.
The head of the election commission told the MBC-Misr TV station that early estimates put turnout at 35 percent of the nearly 54 million voters in the first two days of voting.
That would be a significant drop from the 2012 election that Morsi won, which had a turnout of just under 52 percent.
Sabahi’s campaign put turnout on Monday at only 10 to 15 percent.
The Democracy International observer mission said that the decision to extend polling raised questions about the integrity of Egypt’s electoral process.
“Last-minute decisions about important election procedures, such as a decision to extend polling by an additional day, should be made only in extraordinary circumstances,” Democracy International president Eric Bjornlund said in a statement.
Additional reporting by AP
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