Egypt's Sisi wins overwhelming majority

Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is set for an overwhelming victory in Egypt's presidential poll. Source: AAP

FORMER army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is assured of an overwhelming victory in Egypt's presidential election, securing 96.2 per cent of the vote with most of the ballots counted.

At least 21 million voters, or 96.2 per cent, chose the retired field marshal, who deposed the elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The ballots have been counted from 312 of 352 counting stations, state television reported.

His victory had never been in doubt with the main Islamist opposition crushed since Morsi's ouster.

Sisi's only electoral rival, leftist Hamdeen Sabbahi, received 3.8 per cent of the votes counted.

Sisi rode on a wave of support for a potential strongman who can restore stability after several years of tumult.

Hundreds of his supporters took to the streets waving Egyptian flags, setting off fireworks and honking their car horns.

"It's a victory for stability," said Tahra Khaled, who joined the crowd celebrating in the iconic Tahrir Square, the nerve centre of mass protests that toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The army-installed government and Sisi were eyeing a large turnout as an endorsement of the overthrow of Islamist president in 2013, and the subsequent crackdown on his supporters.

Voting had been scheduled to end on Tuesday, but was extended for an extra day in a last-minute decision that sparked protests from Sabbahi, a leftist politician who came in third in the 2012 election Morsi won.

The move to extend polling for a day fuelled criticism of an election already marred by a deadly crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement.

An electoral official had said after Tuesday's voting, when the election had originally been scheduled to end, turnout was around 37 per cent, well below the 52 per cent of voters who cast their ballots in the 2012 election which Morsi won.

Sisi had appealed for a large turnout, seeking vindication for his overthrow of Morsi, Egypt's only freely elected president, after a single turbulent year in power.

After reports of meagre numbers at polling stations on the first day of voting on Monday, Sisi's backers in the state-run media appealed to people to get out and vote.

The extension of polling cast doubt on the vote's credibility, experts said.

It "raises more questions about the independence of the electoral commission, the impartiality of the government, and the integrity of Egypt's electoral process," said Democracy International, a US-based observer mission.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which had championed a boycott of the election, hailed the lower turnout.

"The great Egyptian people have given a new slap to the military coup's road map and ... written the death certificate of the military coup," said its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party.

The Brotherhood has been subjected to a massive crackdown that has killed hundreds of its supporters and seen it designated a terrorist organisation.

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