CAIRO, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian leadership seeks a high voter turnout on the final voting day as a sign of popular support as incumbent President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi is expected to win a landslide victory for a second four-year term.
Government officials and top judges have urged Wednesday the Egyptian citizens to extensively take part and cast their votes as "a national duty" to back the current leadership for further security, stability and development.
"Participation in the election is actually a national duty of each citizen, not just a right," said Egyptian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid in a statement Wednesday.
"Participation is a responsibility at this time, due to the challenges the nation is going through, whether internally or externally," he added.
Nearly 60 million Egyptians out of the country's 104-million population are eligible to vote in some 13,700 polling stations nationwide.
Sisi came to power in mid-2014, a year after he, as the army chief then, led the military overthrow of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
The voter turnout in the 2014 presidential elections, in which Sisi won by nearly 97 percent of votes against leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, was about 47.5 percent of some 53.8 registered voters.
Since Morsi's ouster, Egypt has been facing a wave of terrorism that killed hundreds of policemen and solders, as well as civilians, with most of them claimed by a Sinai-based group affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) regional terrorist group.
"The state efforts in development and fighting black terrorism require all citizens at this stage to show solidarity and keenness on massively going to polling stations to cast their votes," Chairman of the National Election Authority (NEA), Counselor Lashin Ibrahim, said on Wednesday.
For his part, NEA spokesman Mahmoud al-Sherif said in a press conference later that the Egyptian people proved to the whole world that "Egyptians are able to determine their own destiny through their will, rejecting any interference in their domestic affairs."
He added that Egyptian voters disregarded the calls for boycotting the polls, referring to those boycotters as "haters" of the nation.
Sherif said that the voter turnout over the three election days so far was "high," noting that a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds (about 28 U.S. dollars) would be charged against those who did not vote according to the election law.
State-run MENA news agency quoted governors and senior officials in several provinces nationwide describing voter turnout as "huge."
The election is held amid intense security presence and tight security measures taken by the army and the police around polling centers throughout Egypt.
The Egyptian security forces have killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by Sisi following Morsi's ouster.
Egypt's Army Chief of Staff Mohamed Farid told a private TV channel Wednesday that "the election is a civilized scene that reflects stability and security in Egypt."
He added that Egypt is heading towards a better future after the past stage dedicated for development, stressing that the soldiers are fighting terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula "to maintain the country's stability."
In a state TV interview ahead of the election, Sisi himself urged all eligible voters to take part in the polls regardless of whom they would vote for, expressing his wish to have had more competitors in the bid.
Sisi's sole rival in the polls is little-known politician Moussa Mostafa Moussa, head of liberal Ghad Party, after a couple of possible strong challengers have either withdrawn or been disqualified over violations.
On March 19, the most populous Arab state wrapped up the three-day voting process of Egyptian expatriates in about 124 countries across the world.
The election final result will be announced on April 2, according to the NEA.
