CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has been re-elected for a second term with about 92 percent of the vote, preliminary results showed on Thursday, with just over 40 percent of voters casting ballots.
Twenty-five million of the 60 million registered voters, or some 41.5 percent, turned out during the three days of polling that ended Wednesday, state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported. Twenty-three million voted for El-Sisi.
The Akhbar El-Youm newspaper did not report the full turnout but said El-Sisi won 21.4 million votes, and his rival Moussa Mostafa Moussa 721,000 votes, without mentioning the number of spoiled ballots.
According to Al-Ahram, in addition to 23 million who cast valid votes, two million spoiled their ballot papers.
El-Sisi’s sole challenger was the little-known Moussa, himself a supporter of the president, who registered immediately before the close date for applications, saving the election from being a one-horse race.
Moussa conceded his loss on Wednesday night, telling a television station he had hoped for 10 percent of the vote.
“But I know the immense popularity of President El-Sisi,” he said.
Opposition groups had called for a boycott of this week’s vote which they labeled a facade.
Critics see him as an autocrat. The poor and middle class criticize his economic reforms. But one community of Egyptians — big business — is much happier with El-Sisi’s win.
Businessmen say tough economic reforms, political stability and new infrastructure over the past four years have helped their companies recover from a slump caused by a 2011 uprising.
“He has taken bold and difficult decisions and needs the second term to conclude these steps,” said billionaire Naguib Sawiris, with interests from telecommunications to gold mining. He cited stability and security provided by the El-Sisi administration as factors that have helped boost growth.
Egypt’s economic growth slowed after the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak as tourists and investors fled, but sweeping reforms tied to a $12 billion International Monetary Fund deal signed in 2016 have paved the way toward more growth.
Foreign reserves have more than doubled and investors are returning. Reforms included a currency devaluation, subsidy cuts and tax hikes to reduce the budget deficit.
“Floating the pound has been the best thing that happened in the company’s history,” said Wael Hamdy, vice president of ELSEWEDY ELECTRIC, the Middle East’s biggest cable maker. Hamdy said development in infrastructure had also helped attract investment and create thousands of jobs.
“Until 2014, foreign companies were pulling out of Egypt because of poor infrastructure, but every day now we’re meeting lots of investors who are interested in doing business in Egypt,” he said.
Mohab Ghali, Hilton vice president for Egypt and North Africa, said stability provided by the El-Sisi administration was behind the recovery in tourism, which suffered badly after the Russian airliner was downed.
“We’re seeing new hotels pop up every day which means there’s stability,” said Ghali. “We’re seeing it in the increased numbers of tourists too.”
The number of foreigners visiting Egypt jumped 54 percent to 8.3 million in 2017, and receipts more than doubled to $7.6 billion.