Egypt's el-Sissi Wins Third Presidential Term

Facts

• Egypt's National Elections Authority announced on Monday that Pres. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has overwhelmingly secured a third — and constitutionally final — term in office with 89.6% of the vote in the Dec. 10-12 presidential election.¹
• This outcome was expected as el-Sissi faced no serious challengers after the most credible opposition figure, the young presidential hopeful Ahmed Altantawy, failed to reach the endorsement threshold for candidacy. Yet, voter turnout reached a record high of 66.8%.²
• In power since leading the 2013 ousting of the country's first democratically elected leader, Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Mursi, el-Sissi was first elected in 2014 with 97% of the vote and won re-election with an identical percentage four years later.³
• He was eligible to run for a third term due to a constitutional amendment approved in 2019 to extend the presidential term limit to six years, as he hadn't cumulatively served as president for 12 years at the time of the election.⁴
• Now, the strongman and former general whose sinking popularity rebounded following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war will have to find ways to keep Egypt out of the conflict in Gaza as well as to avert a looming economic crisis.⁵
• The Egyptian pound has lost half of its value against the dollar over the past 22 months, with monthly inflation surging above 30% and one-third of the country's 105M people already living in poverty.⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²Sahara reporters, ³CNN, ⁴Stratfor, ⁵Washington Post and ⁶Associated Press.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Rt international. Despite the ongoing economic crisis, Egyptians flocked to polls as they had never done before with the clear intent to express their opposition to the catastrophic war in Gaza and their support to Pres. el-Sissi — a stabilizing force in the region. The nation has delivered him such a resounding victory as it appreciates his leadership.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Economist. Egyptian authorities have orchestrated an essentially sham election to let el-Sissi claim a broad mandate to advance some unpopular policies to deal with challenges that include the war in Gaza and the economic crisis — even harassing supporters of his main challenger to drop him out of the race. However, if he continues to fail to solve the problems, it's very likely that his mandate will not last.

Predictions