Egyptians yesterday began voting in a presidential election set to deliver an easy win for President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, with turnout the main focus after all serious opposition withdrew complaining of repression.
Polls will be open for three days and al-Sisi, a former military commander, has urged Egyptians to go and vote, hinting that he sees the election as a referendum on his four-year rule.
While many Egyptians see the US-allied leader as vital to stability in a country where unrest since 2011 has hurt the economy, critics say he has presided over Egypt’s worst ever crackdown on dissent and have dubbed the vote a charade.
Photo: AFP
Al-Sisi, 63, who led the military’s overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, has cast his bid for a second term as a vote for stability and security.
However, a lower-than-expected turnout could suggest al-Sisi lacks a mandate to take more of the tough steps needed to revive the economy, which struggled after the 2011 revolution drove away tourists and foreign investors, both sources of hard currency.
Early yesterday, dozens of people lined up to vote in and around Cairo, but not in great numbers. Correspondents saw voters waiting outside schools converted into polling stations.
“We’re coming to support President al-Sisi. Anyone who doesn’t participate in the vote is a traitor,” Saad Shahata, a 76-year-old civil servant, said at a polling station in Monofiya Province north of Cairo.
Al-Sisi’s sole challenger in the vote is Moussa Mostafa Moussa, a longtime al-Sisi supporter widely dismissed as a dummy candidate.
Moussa’s Ghad party had actually endorsed al-Sisi for a second term before he emerged as a last-minute challenger.
Moussa dismisses accusations he is being used to present a false sense of competition, and the electoral commission says it would ensure the vote is fair and transparent.
An editorial in state-owned newspaper al-Ahram acknowledged the narrow choice for voters, but suggested the mere holding of the ballot signaled Egypt was regaining its strength in the face of current domestic and foreign threats.
“The importance of presidential elections this time is not fierce competition or a real [electoral] battle, but a message to the world that Egypt is on its way through a recovery phase,” it said.
Critics say al-Sisi’s popularity since his 2014 election has been hurt by austerity reforms and a muzzling of opponents, activists and independent media. Courts have passed death sentences on hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters since 2013.
Al-Sisi’s backers — who include Western powers and most Gulf Arab dynasties — say the measures are needed to keep the country stable as it recovers from political chaos and tackles a Muslim insurgency
Al-Sisi won nearly 97 percent of the vote in 2014, but less than half of eligible Egyptians voted even though the election was extended to three days.
Even before campaigning officially begun, the UN, rights groups and opposition figures criticized the run-up as compromised by arrests, intimidation and a nomination process stacked in al-Sisi’s favor.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS