let's bring in correspondent ruth michelson who is based in cairo hiero thanks for joining us now opposition groups as we just said called for a boycott of this photo a head of the election they said it was a charade but international observers have said that it's been free and fair hasn't well i mean certainly when we saw citizens going to the polls by the standards almost international elections that is they were able to vote freely. but the same international observers also said that they were only here to observe the voting day and so it's and really the most important things that happened. prior to the vote you know long before the election really kicked off which was the. dislocation or. intimidation of five candidates he had intended to get on the ballot to provide some kind of opposition to president. to rest and remain a tension one apparently to force and we understand that they were intimidated from even being able to get him out so that doesn't really give signs of a free and fair election no matter what happens in the day we said that turnout has been low ruth how important is t

president add to his sisi what does this mean for the arab world's most populous nation going forward ruth michelson is a correspondent based in cairo and she will be able to provide us with some contacts was this a vote by egyptians for a sisi or for stability in the country. well in government and c.c. himself bill this vote as a vote was a vote for civility a vote for the country a kind of vote for egyptian patriotism as a whole but of course high turnout would turn out of any kind benefit cc's will he wanted a strong mandate going into his second term in office to be able to push through further reforms perhaps even constitutional reforms we saw that there was forty why i'm just i'm forty one percent turnout which is about a four percent dip from cc's last victory in twenty forty but he got roughly the same amount of votes ninety six point nine percent in twenty fourteen and this time around ninety seven point zero eight percent of the vote so roughly the same between twenty forty and now alone of course we have no way of knowing if these figures are correct all right now let's talk a little bit

and let's bring in correspondent ruth michelson who is standing by in cairo hi ruth good to see you the results have been announced in the last hour was there anything unexpected there. i'm not sure you can say that there was anything unexpected to give than that as you pointed out it was only one competitor c.c.c. on the ballot and he was known to have been campaigning for the president and his party endorsed him right up until he declared his intention to run so few surprises that c.c. managed ninety seven point not a percent of the vote so pretty much what he got in twenty four to. his competitor managed just under three percent of the vote turnout was forty one point five percent so this is the only figure that gives us some indication that. people are slightly less happy with c.c. than they were in twenty forty four percent in turnout down from four years ago that we also have no way of knowing how valid these numbers really are the opposition called for a boycott ahead of the spot saying it was essentially a charade but international observers who are in the country said that toda

and let's talk to ruth michelson a correspondent based in cairo for more on the story her roof as we said opposition groups so we're calling for a boycott ahead of the selection but international observers have actually said that this was a free and fair vote tell us more about the political atmosphere surrounding the selection. well i mean the first thing to remember about this election was that five candidates he has actually presented some real opposition to president abdul fattah el-sisi were prevented from running. either through intimidation that they cited or even arrests. international observers did say that the vote was free and fair their point necessarily signs of intimidation when people went to the problems but the most significant thing the most significant developments rather happened for this election long before anyone went to the taking the ballot box the selection of candidates was far more significant of what happens to voters on the day how high has turnout been and how important is that the r.c.c. . turnout is incredibly important to present after the fact that