Summary Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was is poised for an overwhelming victory in Egypt’s presidential election.
CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt's ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was headed on Thursday for an overwhelming victory in a presidential election touted as a plebiscite on his ouster of the elected Islamist leader last year.
With almost 15 percent of polling stations accounted for, the retired field marshal led with about 93 percent of votes cast over the three-day election, trouncing his sole rival Hamdeen Sabbahi.
The outcome had never been in doubt, with Sisi riding on a wave of support for a potential strongman who can restore stability after several years of tumult.
But the army-installed government and Sisi were eyeing a large turn out as an endorsement of the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July, and the subsequent crackdown on his supporters.
Voting had been scheduled to end on Tuesday, but was extended for an extra day in a last minute decision that sparked protests from Sabbahi, a leftist politician who came in third in the 2012 election Morsi won.
Sabbahi received 133,548 votes (2.95 percent) to Sisi's 4,215,699 (93.3 percent) in the latest polls, according to the official Nile Television.
The station reported that 166,738 voters (3.7 percent) spoiled their ballots in the 2,000 out of 13,899 polling stations that have already released their tallies.
An election committee official said turnout has "surpassed 25 million (46 percent)" out of almost 54 million registered voters, the official Al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website.
The move to extend polling for a day fuelled criticism of an election already marred by a deadly crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement.
An electoral official had said on Tuesday that turnout was about 37 percent, well below the 52 percent of voters who cast their ballots in the 2012 election which Morsi won.
Sisi had appealed for a large turnout, seeking vindication for his overthrow of Morsi, Egypt's only freely elected president, after a single turbulent year in power.
Sisi had urged "40, 45 (million) or even more" to give credibility to an election boycotted by Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and secular opposition groups.
After reports of meagre numbers at polling stations on the first day of voting Monday, Sisi's backers in the state-run media appealed to people to get out and vote.
On Wednesday, several Cairo polling stations visited by AFP were practically deserted.
"They didn't get enough votes, so they extended polling into a third day," complained filmmaker Mohamed Ali Hagar, who said he would stay away regardless.
"The state is searching for votes," said a front-page headline of Al-Masry Al-Youm, a newspaper that usually backs Sisi.
The extension of polling casts doubt on the vote's credibility, experts said.
It "raises more questions about the independence of the electoral commission, the impartiality of the government, and the integrity of Egypt's electoral process," said Democracy International, a US-based observer mission.
