Egypt’s President El-Sisi secures 3rd term in landslide victory

Voting in Egypt was held over three days on Dec. 10-12, with a turnout that the election authority said had reached 66.8 percent. (File/AFP)
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Updated 19 December 2023
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Egypt’s President El-Sisi secures 3rd term in landslide victory

  • Abdel Fattah El-Sisi won a new six-year term with 89.6 percent of the vote in a landslide election victory
  • Head of the National Elections Authority, Judge Hazem Badawy, said that El-Sisi received 39,702,451 valid votes

CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has won a new six-year term with 89.6 percent of the vote in a landslide election victory, the National Elections Authority announced on Monday.

The head of the National Elections Authority, Judge Hazem Badawy, said that President El-Sisi received 39,702,451 valid votes.

The turnout was 66.8 percent of more than 67.3 million registered voters, said Badawy.

About 44.8 million people cast their votes in the presidential elections from home and abroad.

The authority lauded the Egyptian people for their positive participation in the ballot.

El-Sisi faced off against three candidates in the vote held from Dec. 10-12.

Egyptians abroad voted from Dec. 1–3 at 137 Egyptian embassies and consulates across 121 countries.

There were 44,288,361 valid votes, representing 98.9 percent of the ballots cast, while 489,307 votes — 1.1 percent — were deemed invalid.

Runner-up Hazem Omar received 1,986,352 votes, representing 4.5 percent of the valid ballots recorded by the authority.

Farid Zahran came in third with 1,776,952, or 4 percent of the votes.

Abdel-Sanad Yamama came fourth with 822,606, or 1.9 percent of the votes, Badawy said.

El-Sisi was elected president of Egypt for the first time in 2014 and was re-elected in 2018.

The latest election is the third time in a decade El-Sisi has won in a landslide victory.

He is credited with engineering a return to public order in Egypt after a period of political violence and chaos that followed the 2011 uprising.


Palestinians from West Bank arrive at Israeli checkpoints for first Friday prayers of Ramadan

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Palestinians from West Bank arrive at Israeli checkpoints for first Friday prayers of Ramadan

Palestinian worshippers coming from West Bank cities arrived at Israeli checkpoints on Friday hoping to cross to attend first Friday prayers of Ramadan at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Some said they were not allowed to enter and were asked to go back.

Israeli authorities said they would only allow up to 10,000 Palestinian worshippers from the West Bank to attend prayers at al-Aqsa, as security forces stepped up deployments across the city.

Police said preparations for Ramadan had been completed, with large numbers of officers and border police to be deployed in the Old City, around holy sites and along routes used by worshippers. 

Israel's COGAT, a military agency that controls access to the West Bank and Gaza, said that entry to Jerusalem from the West Bank would be capped at 10,000 worshippers. Men aged 55 and over and women aged 50 and over will be eligible to enter, along with children up to age 12 accompanied by a first-degree relative, COGAT said. 

Al-Aqsa lies at the heart of Jerusalem's old city. It is Islam's third holiest site and known to Jews as Temple Mount.