CAIRO (AP) — Voting has been extended for a third day in Egypt’s presidential election, but few people are showing up at polling places.
Estimates reported by pro-government media put voter turnout since Monday at 38 to 44 percent. That’s far less than the nearly 52 percent who turned out for the 2012 election won by Mohammed Morsi.
The man behind Morsi’s ouster, former military chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi (AHB’-del fat-AH’ el-SEE’-see), is still expected to win the election handily.
But he was hoping for enthusiastic public support to show his critics that his ouster of the Islamist president and his crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood reflected the will of the people.
Morsi’s Brotherhood supporters and other Islamists are boycotting the vote, together with many of the youths who took part in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
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