Egypt extends election by day to aid Sisi vote
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EGYPT’S presidential election was extended by a day yesterday in an effort to boost lower than expected turnout that threatened to undermine the credibility of the frontrunner, former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
After Sisi called for record voter participation, low turnout would be seen at home and abroad as an immediate setback for the field marshal who toppled Egypt’s first freely elected leader, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi.
The two-day vote was originally due to conclude yesterday at 10pm but was extended until today. The extension would allow the “greatest number possible” to vote, including Egyptians who need to return home to vote.
Sisi faces only one challenger in the election: the leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third in a 2012 vote won by Morsi and was seen as a long-shot in the race against an army man who became popular after ending Morsi’s divisive year in office.
“I was going to vote for Sisi because he will be the president anyway, and because I was grateful to him for removing the Brotherhood from power,” said Hani Ali, 27, who works in the private sector.
“But now I won’t go as I felt people are unhappy with the chaos of the past months and are not as pro-Sisi as I thought.”
Lines outside polling stations in various parts of Cairo were short, and in some cases no voters could be seen yesterday, the second day of voting.
It is the second time Egyptians are electing a president in two years, and it is the seventh vote or referendum since 2011.
The military-backed government launched a determined effort to get out the vote.
The justice ministry said Egyptians who did not vote would be fined, and train fares were waived in an effort to boost the numbers. Local media loyal to the government chided the public for not turning out in large enough numbers.
One TV commentator said people who did not vote were “traitors, traitors, traitors.”
Al-Azhar, a state-run body that is Egypt’s highest Islamic authority, said failure to vote was “to disobey the nation,” state TV reported. Pope Tawadros, head of Egypt’s Coptic church, also appeared on state TV to urge voters to head to the polls.
Bloody crackdown
Sisi is widely seen as the most powerful figure in the interim government that has waged a bloody crackdown on the Brotherhood, declaring it an enemy of the state, and putting its leaders on trial on charges that carry the death penalty.
He has announced that his priorities are fighting Islamist militants who have taken up arms since Morsi’s removal, and reviving an economy battered by more than three years of turmoil that has driven away tourists and investors.
Sisi has been lionized by state and privately owned media, which have helped build a personality cult around the former intelligence chief about whom little was known until last year: his face now appears on chocolates, posters and key-rings.
He is the sixth military man to run Egypt since 1952.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies, who view Sisi as the mastermind of a coup against Morsi, have called for a boycott of the election. Security forces have killed hundreds of Morsi’s supporters and arrested an estimated 20,000 activists since his removal.
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