Egypt’s President Sisi re-elected with 89.6% of vote

Egypt’s President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi  has won a new six-year term with 89.6 per cent of the vote, the election authority announced Monday.

Turnout reached an “unprecedented” 66.8 per cent of voters, said authority head Hazem Badawy.

Over 39 million had cast their ballots for Sisi, a former army chief who has ruled the most populous Arab country for a decade.

The president was up against three relative unknowns in the vote held between December 10 and 12.

Runner-up Hazem Omar, who leads the Republican People’s Party, received 4.5 percent of the vote.

Next came Farid Zahran, leader of the left-leaning Egyptian Social Democratic Party, and Abdel-Sanad Yamama from the Wafd, a century-old but relatively marginal party.

Sisi is now set to serve his third — and, according to the constitution, final — term in office, starting in April.

Sisi’s win comes as no surprise, despite Egypt being gripped by its worst-ever economic crisis and high tensions around the Israel-Hamas war in neighbouring Gaza.

The currency has plunged and annual inflation is running at 36.4 percent, sending up prices of some food staples by the week, hurting household budgets.

Even before the current economic crisis, about two thirds of Egypt’s population of nearly 106 million were living on or below the poverty line.