Egypt Presidential Election Voting Begins... '3rd Term Bid' El-Sisi Election Turnout in Focus

No Real Competition Among Opposition Candidates, Likely to Win
If Elected, Will Govern for 6 Years Until 2030

On the 10th (local time), presidential voting began in Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world.

The Egyptian National Election Authority (NEA) announced that voting started simultaneously at over 9,400 polling stations nationwide from 9 a.m. that day. The presidential term in Egypt is six years.

About 67 million voters are expected to participate in the three-day presidential election running until the 12th. If no runoff election is held, the final results will be announced on the 18th. Egypt's elections formally follow democratic procedures.

However, amid controversies such as obstruction of opposition candidates and strong control of public opinion, the general assessment is that this is a ceremonial process confirming the third term of incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (69). The biggest interest in the election is not who will be elected, but how high a voter turnout el-Sisi will achieve.

Opponents running against el-Sisi as independents, including Fagihd Zahraan (Egyptian Social Democratic Party), Hazem Omar (Popular People’s Party), and Abdel-Sanad Yamama (Egyptian Wafd Party), are considered mere 'figureheads' in the local atmosphere. Prominent opposition candidates such as Ahmed Tantawi either withdrew or failed to register because they could not collect the required 25,000 voter signatures. Tantawi claimed that the government orchestrated systematic obstruction during this process.

On the first day of the Egyptian presidential election on the 10th (local time), a man is seen kissing a photo of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
[Image source=Reuters, Yonhap News]

President el-Sisi, a former Minister of Defense, led the coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Mohamed Morsi, supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013, and came to power through the presidential election in June the following year. He won landslide victories with around 97% of the vote in the 2014 and 2018 elections, and it is widely expected that similar results will emerge in this election.

Since the presidential election is essentially a referendum on President el-Sisi, a high voter turnout indicates strong public support among Egyptians for his continued rule. The voter turnout was 47% in the 2014 election and 41% in 2018. Since the coup, el-Sisi has emphasized 'national security' for the past decade, suppressing dissidents and controlling the media.

On the 10th (local time), a man is placing a presidential election ballot into a ballot box at a polling station in downtown Cairo, Egypt. [Image source=AFP, Yonhap News]

Despite a foreign exchange crisis and soaring prices caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the Ukraine war, el-Sisi pushed forward with large-scale projects involving astronomical sums, such as the new administrative capital, drawing criticism both domestically and internationally. After winning re-election in 2018, el-Sisi pushed through a constitutional amendment in April 2019 that extended the presidential term from four to six years and relaxed term limits, paving the way for him to remain in power until 2030.

This election involves 67 diplomats from 24 embassies and 220 members from 14 foreign organizations as international observers, while 22,340 people from 68 organizations within Egypt are monitoring the election.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.