El-Sisi faces factious agenda after landslide victory

Read on here. Ahram Online, by Gamal Essam El-Din

Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is due to be sworn as president next weekend, but analysts say it is yet to be seen how he will handle key internal and external files

Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi (Photo courtesy of El-Sisi official Facebook page)

The winner of this week's presidential election, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, is expected to take the oath of office before the High Constitutional Court to become the ninth president of Egypt next weekend.

The move comes after semi-official reports showed that the former military chief had swept presidential polls, held on 26, 27 and 28 May, achieving a landslide victory over his sole rival Hamdeen Sabahi.

Initial vote tallies show that El-Sisi had secured a historic victory, winning around 95 per cent of the vote at around 23 million votes.

Sabahi won a little more than 3 percent of the vote. His vote tally was so low that he was outpaced by invalid ballot papers, which numbered around 1.5 million, or around 4 percent.

El-Sisi's historic margin of votes cleared the simple-majority threshold required to avoid a second run-off round.

According to Abdel-Aziz Salman, spokesman for the Presidential Election Commission (PEC), which is overseeing the election, "the final official results will be announced by PEC's chairman Anwar El-Assi on 3 or 4 June, rather than (as scheduled) on 5 June, which marks the anniversary of Egypt's military setback on that day in 1967."

Article 144 of the new constitution stipulates that "if there is no parliament sitting during the presidential elections, the new president must be sworn in before the High Constitutional Court."

According to sources, El-Sisi will be sworn in before the High Constitutional Court either on the morning of Saturday 7 June, or a few days later. The court, located in Maadi in southern Cairo, is currently headed by Adly Mansour, a senior judge who was named interim president of Egypt after Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was ousted from office on 3 July last year. Mansour's presidency of the court is temporarily suspended while he fulfills the role of head of state.

Rumours were rampant that El-Sisi's swearing-in ceremony would be delayed until 30 June, or after two laws regulating Egypt's upcoming parliamentary elections are ratified by President Mansour. The rumours were quickly dismissed by Mansour's legal advisor, Ali Awad, who denied the possibility of delaying the inauguration of Egypt's new president.

Semi-official sources, however, told Ahram Online: "El-Sisi's swearing-in at Maadi's High Constitutional Court will be followed by an evening inauguration ceremony to be held at east Cairo's Ittihadiya presidential palace, expected to be attended by a number of foreign leaders, mostly from the Arab world, as well as senior Egyptian politicians, high-ranking officials, and Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, whose cabinet is obliged by the constitution to resign from office after the results of presidential polls are officially announced."

Sources close to El-Sisi's campaign agree that invitations were extended to some Arab leaders such as Jordan's King Abdallah, chairman of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, crown prince of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, Saudi foreign minister Saud Al-Faisal, president of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed, and secretary-general of the Arab League Nabil El-Araby.