Sudan's Bashir phones Sisi over winning 2nd term

CAIRO – 2 April 2018: Egypt's President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi received on Monday a phone call from Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir who congratulated the Egyptian leader for winning a second term.

Bashir firmly stressed on the long-standing and close relationship between the two brotherly countries, promoted by the historical ties and common aspirations, said Egyptian presidency spokesperson Bassam Radi in a statement on Monday.

For his part, Sisi expressed his wishes for boosting cooperation in various fields to achieve the interests of both nations.

Bashir held a one-day visit on March 19 to Cairo where both leaders discussed the outstanding issues between the two countries, based on the agreement reached at the recent Addis Ababa tripartite summit.

In a press conference on Monday, the National Election Authority announced the victory of Sisi over Ghad Party Chairman Moussa Moustafa Moussa in the 2018 presidential election.

President Sisi garnered 97.08 percent of valid votes in the presidential election last week, where more than 21.8 million people voted for him. His hardly-known competitor, Moussa Moustafa Moussa, received 656,534 votes, making up 2.9 percent of the valid ballots.


The turnout stood at 24,254,152 voters, representing 41 percent of 50,078,138 registered voters.


In a televised speech after winning the election, Sisi pledged to keep his promise in serving the nation and thanked all Egyptians for trusting him to lead the country.


“With complete honesty, I pledge to keep my promise with you and to dedicate myself to spare no efforts for our great nation,” Sisi said on Monday. The national unity that was shown during the election was strong evidence of Egypt’s solid power against those who wanted to undermine the country, he added.

Much like the 2014 election, when Sisi competed against well-known politician Hamdeen Sabahy, invalid votes ranked second in the poll. In the 2014 vote, 23.4 million people voted for Sisi, invalid votes accounted for one million ballots, and Sabahy won 740,000 votes.


In 2018, invalid votes made up 7.27 percent of the total votes, accounting for 1.762 million ballots. If invalid votes are not excluded from the result, Sisi's share of the total votes would be 90 percent.