Anyone facing Sisi would win a small vote percentage: Moussa

CAIRO – 2 April 2018: The defeated candidate in Egypt’s 2018 presidential election, Moussa Moustafa Moussa, confessed that any rival facing President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in the presidential race would have obtained a small percentage of the vote.

National Election Authority (NEA) Chairperson Lachine Ibrahim announced on Monday that Sisi will be Egypt’s president for a second four-year term, after winning 97.08 percent of valid votes; more than 21.8 million votes. Meanwhile, Moussa, Sisi’s sole rival, received only 656,534 votes, making up 2.9 percent of the valid ballots.

“If I competed against another candidate, I would have obtained a higher percentage,” Moussa told Extra News on Monday following a press conference in which he congratulated Sisi for his landslide victory.

In the press conference, Moussa said that President Sisi is a “suitable man to complete the march of development due to his popularity,” adding that he will run in Egypt’s 2022 presidential election.

In comparison with his 2018 presidential election bid, President Sisi received 23.7 million votes (97.9 percent of valid votes) in 2014. Meanwhile, 740,000 people voted for his contender, politician Hamdeen Sabahy, who ranked number third in the 2012 election against ousted President Mohamed Morsi, and Ahmed Shafiq.

The 2018 presidential election was the third in Egypt since the January 2011 revolution.