President Abdel Fattah El Sisi won a second term in office with 97.08% of the vote, according to the State Information Service. Some 22.491 mn out of the total 24.245 mn who turned out to vote cast their ballots for El Sisi. The official turnout rate was 41.05%, with both the percentage of votes and turnout rate close to those from the 2014 election that brought the president into office. Contender Moussa Moustafa Moussa won 2.92% of valid ballots cast; the elections commission ruled that 7.27% of all votes cast had been spoiled, fueling popular suggestions that footballer Mohamed Salah beat-out Moussa in an informal write-in campaign.

El Sisi will be sworn in at a ceremony in early June, Deputy House of Representative Speaker Soliman Wahdan told Extra News yesterday, according to Al Shorouk. The president’s new term in office officially begins on 7 June, he added.

El Sisi thanked voters in his victory speech, promising to continue working towards achieving development, stability, and improved “quality of life.” He also thanked Moussa for his “honorable, civilized competition”. Read the full speech here.

World leaders congratulated El Sisi on his victory. Leaders including Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, Bahraini Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and US President Donald Trump were among those who checked in. The US State Department also said in a statement that while it looks “forward to continuing to work with [El Sisi] to advance our strategic partnership and address,” it would also “continue to encourage a broadening of opportunities for political participation for Egyptians, and emphasize the importance of the protection of human rights and the vital role of civil society.”

Fight over term limits or length of term in office next? The election victory has once again opened debate over potential constitutional amendments to abolish term limits or extend the length of a term in office. The Wall Street Journal reports that Rep. Ismail Nasreddin said he plans to propose extending the current presidential term to six years from four: “The constitution is not a sacred text,” he said, adding that “developing countries need more time to implement their plans.” Opposition leaders, including Mohamed Anwar Al Sadat, say they would fight the move, and plans to amend presidential terms may find difficulty garnering support from pro-government lawmakers. El Sisi has previously thrown cold water on a drive to give him more time in office by abolishing term limits.

The Thing Called Agina is still around? The WSJ piece quotes among its sources the lawmaker / creature Elhamy Agina, among whose claims to fame is his suggestion that women should undergo physical tests of their, uhm…purity? …as a condition for admission to university.

Lex does a drive-by on Egypt: The Financial Times’ influential Lex column welcomed El Sisi’s election with a hatchet job on Egypt, writing that investors did not need [to see the election] outcome to know the risks of investing in Egypt are too high” and adding that we’re looking forward to “a lengthy autocracy [that] means more dissidents in jail and more vanity projects. There is little financial room for error. The budget deficit is on course for 9% of gross domestic product this year.”

As expected, El Sisi’s election win tops coverage on Egypt in the foreign press this morning, with most taking a dim view. Some, including the Guardian, are saying the election will galvanize the opposition. They note comments by opposition figures such as 2014 presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi and Al Sadat, who Bloomberg says issued a statement urging El Sisi to engage in “serious dialogue” with civil society and the political community. Reuters, the Associated Press, AFP, France 24, Haaretz, ABC News also have coverage.