AKIPRESS.COM - Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has won what is being called a "landslide" victory but the low voter turnout - by every count well under 50 percent - has undermined his savior image and deprived him of the mandate he so eagerly sought.

As fully expected, the man who deposed Egypt’s last elected president — and who has been running the country for the 10 months since — will remain in charge, Reuters said.

Early on Thursday, supporters of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said the former field marshal had garnered 23.38 million votes, while his only opponent, the leftist political activist Hamdeen Sabahi, was said to have notched up just 735,285.

But if the outcome of the election was never really in doubt, the way balloting unfolded this week had the perverse effect of undermining the winner — and in more ways than one.

Embarrassingly low voter turnout has cast a shadow over al-Sisi’s victory, which he had framed as a request for a “mandate” from an Egyptian public that government and private media alike portrayed as in rapturous thrall of the career soldier.

The Sabahi campaign said just 25 percent of voters showed up at polls during the two days of official voting; an Egyptian official put the figure at “about 37 percent.”