Egypt's el-Sisi re-elected as President
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wins the Egyptian Presidential election in a landslide once again as he is slated to stay in office until 2030.
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Vehicles pass near banners supporting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for the presidential elections, in Cairo, Egypt, December 10, 2023 (AP)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi won a landslide on Monday his third term as President without much resistance from any of his opponents as he overtook them by far.
El-Sisi garnered 89.6% of the vote, the National Election Authority said, with a comparatively high turnout rate of 66.8%, a substantial increase from the 2018 election's 41%.
The Egyptian President allegedly set the ongoing aggression on Gaza as one of the focal points of his campaign.
Voters went on to underline that the war on Gaza encouraged them to vote for the former military chief as they saw him as an effective force of regional stability as his government receives financial support from Western and Gulf allies.
"Egyptians lined up to vote not just to choose their president for the next term, but to express their rejection of this inhumane war to the entire world," el-Sisi said in a speech soon after results were announced.
A total of 44.2 million votes were cast. As the winning candidate, el-Sisi received 39,702,451 votes, while candidate Hazem Omar obtained 1,986,352, and candidate Farid Zahran obtained 1,776,952 votes, while candidate Abdel-Sanad Yamama only obtained 822,000.
About 67 million people over the age of eighteen, out of a total population of 104 million people, have the right to vote in the elections, which are supervised by more than twenty thousand judges.
The National Elections Authority stressed that it had not received any appeals from any of the four candidates regarding the election.
El-Sisi's term ends on the first of next April, after which the new term begins, which is scheduled to continue until 2030.
The Egyptian elections took place under more difficult economic conditions than any of their recent predecessors, with an inflation rate approaching 40% and a local currency that has lost 50% of its value, which led to price fluctuations. It also coincides with the continuation of the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and the repercussions it had been bearing for Cairo.
War on Gaza threat to Egyptian security
"I certainly realize the magnitude of the challenges we have gone through and are still facing," el-Sisi said.
He added that the continuation of the war in Gaza represents a threat to Egyptian national security in particular and the Palestinian cause in general.
He also stressed that the Egyptians' alignment was a vote for the entire world to express their rejection of this inhumane war on the Gaza Strip and not simply to choose their president for a new presidential term.
A UN study shows that the genocide in Gaza on Palestine's neighbors Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan has inflicted costs that could rise to at least $10 billion this year and drive over 230,000 people into poverty.
Commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the report reveals that the three neighboring nations may incur a loss in GDP that would amount to $10.3 billion or 2.3%, and in case the war goes for another six months, that amount could double.
Abdallah Al-Dardari, the UN assistant secretary-general and UNDP's Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) told Reuters after leading the report, "This is a massive impact," adding, "The crisis was a bomb in an already fragile regional situation... It soured sentiment with fear of what could happen and where things are going."
Read more: Lebanon front open as long as Gaza aggression continues: Sheikh Qassem
The scale of destruction in Gaza, according to Al-Dardari, has been unseen within such a short time since World War Two, and he also pointed out the loss of housing.
"To lose 45-50% of all housing in one month of fighting ... We have never seen anything like this ... the relationship between destruction level and time, it's unique," he said, as he compared the situation to that of Syria.
"It took Syria five years of fighting to reach the same level of destruction that Gaza reached in one month". Al Dardari served as a former minister for economic affairs in Syria.
