CAIRO: Egyptians began voting on Sunday in a presidential election set to hand Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a third term in power, as the country grapples with an economic crisis and a war on its border with Gaza.
If Sisi wins a new six-year term, his immediate priorities would be taming near-record inflation, managing a chronic foreign currency shortage and preventing spillover from the conflict between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
Voting, which runs from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. (0700-1900 GMT), is spread over three days, with results due to be announced on Dec. 18.
Patriotic songs played on a loop as polling stations opened on Sunday morning in Cairo, where pictures of Sisi proliferated in the weeks leading up to the election. Riot police were deployed at entrances to Tahrir Square in the capital’s centre.
Critics see the election as a sham after a decade-long crackdown on dissent. The government’s media body has called it a step towards political pluralism.
Three candidates qualified to stand against Sisi in the election, none of them high-profile figures. The most prominent potential challenger halted his run in October, saying officials and thugs had targeted his supporters - accusations dismissed by the national election authority.
Authorities and commentators on tightly controlled local media have been urging Egyptians to vote, though some people said days before the poll they did not know when it was taking place. Others said voting would make little difference.
“I was aware there are elections happening, but I had no idea when. I only knew that because of the massive Sisi campaigns around the streets,” said Aya Mohamed, a 35-year-old marketing executive.
“I feel indifferent about the elections because there will be no real change,” she said.
As army chief, Sisi led the 2013 ousting of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, before winning the presidency the following year with 97% of the vote. He secured the same margin of victory in 2018.
He has overseen a crackdown that has swept up liberal and leftist activists as well as rights groups say tens of thousands have been jailed.
Sisi and his backers say the crackdown was needed to stabilise Egypt and counter extremism. He has presented himself as a bulwark of stability as conflict has erupted on Egypt’s borders in Libya, and this year in Sudan and Gaza.
“I will vote for Sisi of course. I love him,” said Nabia Ahmed, a 65-year-old mother of four voting in Bahr al Azam Street in Giza. “I always vote for presidents. I am voting because I want security for my children.”
In Al Arish in northern Sinai, where the military has extended its control after battling militants, a school named after a dead soldier where pictures of victims of attacks were displayed was being used as a polling station.