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CAIRO. – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been re-elected for a second term with 97,08 percent of valid votes cast in an election last week, the election authority said yesterday. The head of the authority Lasheen Ibrahim said at a Press conference that turnout was 41,05 percent of the almost 60 million registered voters.

He said 92,73 percent of the votes were valid from the roughly 24 million cast, while almost two million ballots were spoiled.
President Al-Sisi’s sole rival and an erstwhile ardent supporter, Moussa Mostafa Moussa, won 2,92 percent of the valid votes, Ibrahim said.

Moussa entered the election at the very last moment after first leading a re-election campaign for Sisi, saving the vote from having just one candidate. President Al-Sisi’s serious contenders had withdrawn, been sidelined or detained.

“These are momentous moments for this nation . . . which will be written in letters of light, under the title: battle for the love of Egypt,” Ibrahim said.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message to President al-Sisi yesterday, to congratulate him on his re-election as Egyptian president.

In the message, President Xi said that he has kept close contact with President al-Sisi in recent years and that he is pleased to see that mutual political trust between the two countries has kept deepening, bilateral pragmatic cooperation has kept advancing and people-to-people and cultural exchanges have become more active.

President Xi said that China and Egypt enjoy a long-run friendship and he hoped that the Egyptian people, under Sisi’s leadership, would score more important achievements in exploring the country’s own development path.

He said that he highly values the development of China-Egypt relations and is willing to work together with Sisi to further enhance the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Egypt and bring more benefits to the two peoples. – AFP/Xinhua.