President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has announced Parliamentary elections will be held in the coming period but not during Ramadan, which is to start in mid-June. (AFP Photo)
An Egyptian supporter of the banned Muslim brotherhood, leans on a wall decorated with images of ousted president Mohamad Morsi, with a slogan that reads “Our President, Dr. Mohamad Morsi ” and the word “boycott” in the village of Kirdassa, a hot bed for Islamists southeast of Cairo, May 26, 2014. Egyptians voted for a new president in an election expected to sweep to power the ex-army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew the country’s first democratically-elected leader and crushed his Islamist movement. (AFP PHOTO/ MARWAN NAAMANI)
Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb is voting in the Presidential Election on Monday. (Photo by AHmed Al-Malky)
AFP – Amid heavy security, Egyptians voted for a new president Monday in an election expected to sweep to power ex-army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
The two-day election is the first since the frontrunner Al-Sisi deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July, a move that unleashed the bloodiest violence in Egypt’s recent history.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement is boycotting the vote, as are revolutionary youth groups who fear Sisi is an autocrat in the making.
But the 59-year-old retired Field Marshal is expected to trounce his sole rival, leftist Hamdeen Sabbahi, amid widespread calls for stability.
Many view the vote as a referendum on stability versus the freedoms promised by the Arab Spring-inspired popular uprising that ousted veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
