The preliminary count of Egypt’s 2018 presidential votes show incumbent President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi the winner in a landslide victory, securing 90% of the vote, with a voter turnout of 40%, Egyptian state TV reported. The low turnout defied a state law imposing a $28 fine on each eligible voter who fails to cast his ballot.
In the 2014 presidential elections, El-Sisi won 97% of the vote, with a 47% turnout. Back then, more than a million eligible voters cast blank ballots.
El-Sisi’s only opponent, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, received 3%, with 5% of the voters casting a blank ballot.
The voting was supervised by 18,000 judges at 13,706 polling stations. International organizations that observed the voting reported a smooth process, with no significant violations.
Some observers have attributed the relatively high number of spoiled votes to pressure put on voters to participate in the election.
