Former army chief el-Sissi declared the winner of Egypt's presidential election

Egypt's electoral commission has declared ex-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi the outright winnier of last week's presidential poll - with 96.9 percent of the vote. Despite extended voting, turnout was a low 47 percent.

Deutsche Welle, 3 June 2014

Egypt's electoral commission confirmed Sissi as the president-elect on Tuesday as security forces used barbed wire to seal off Cairo's Tahrir Square for planned post-election celebrations.

In a speech just after the commission's declaration, Sissi urged Egyptians to work to restore stability and achieve "freedom" and "social justice."

The commission said turnout had been about 47 percent of Egypt's 54 million eligible voters - far less than the 80 percent of the electorate that Sissi had requested - despite three days of voting.

The turnout has raised questions as to whether the population was simply apathetic or had followed a boycott call from the Muslim Brotherhood of jailed Islamist former President Mohamed Morsi.

Under Sissi's leadership, the military removed Morsi from office last July amid massive protests over his government's rule. Since then, Egypt's mainstream media had depicted Sissi as the nation's savior.

Rival on mere 3 percent

The commission said Sissi's rival, Hamdeen Sabbahi, garnered just 3 percent of the vote, excluding spoiled ballots.

It said Sissi garnered 23.78 million votes, while Hamdeen got 318,000 - lower than the 1.4 million invalid ballots cast in the polling.

After the announcement, several hundred people set off fireworks, cheered and sang pro-military songs in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Donor Saudi Arabia calls for economic repairs

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whose wealthy country is a strong ally of Egypt, sent a message, saying Sissi's win also set the stage to repair Egypt's battered economy.

He invited "brothers and friends of Egypt" to a donors' conference, according to the official Saudi news agency SPA.

After Morsi's ouster last year, Saudi Arabia quickly pledged $5 billion (3.7 billion euros) in aid to Cairo, with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates offering a combined $7 billion.

Referring to Egypt's turmoil since the ouster in 2011 of long-time President Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah said donors were needed to help Egypt "get out of the tunnel."

On Monday, Egypt's interior minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, had announced government plans to monitor social networking sites, but dismissed alarm over shrinking freedom of expression.

Almost simultaneously, Egypt's most popular satirist Bassem Youssef announced that his landmark show had been canceled because of pressure not to air it.

ipj/pfd (AFP, AP, Reuters)