Al-Sisi wins election by landslide

With nearly all the ballots counted, Egypt's former military chief has won a crushing victory over his sole opponent with more than 92 percent of the votes, according to results announced by his campaign early Thursday.

The campaign of retired field marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said he won 23.38 million votes, with left-wing politician Hamdeen Sabahi taking 735,285. Invalid votes were 1.07 million, or nearly 350,000 more than the number of votes for the 59-year-old Sabahi.

Al-Sisi’s win was never in doubt, but the career infantry officer, also 59, had hoped for a strong turnout to bestow legitimacy on his ouster last July of Egypt’s first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi.

However, al-Sisi’s campaign said turnout nationwide was around 44 percent, even after voting was extended for a third day Wednesday — well below the nearly 52 percent won by Morsi in June 2012.

In his final campaign TV interview last week, al-Sisi set the bar even higher, saying he wanted more than 40 million voters — there are nearly 54 million registered voters — to cast ballots to “show the world” the extent of his popular backing.

Al-Sisi supporters held all-night celebrations in Cairo, with several thousands gathered at the central Tahrir square, birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They waved Egyptian flags, al-Sisi posters and danced. There were similar celebrations in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and a string of other cities north of the capital and in the Oasis province of Fayoum southwest of Cairo.