Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi was on course for a sweeping victory in Egypt's presidential election Wednesday, his campaign said, picking up over 93 percent of the vote in a poll marred by low voter turnout.

The Sisi campaign said the former army chief's only rival, Hamdeen Sabahi, picked up 2.9 percent while 3.7 percent of the votes were deemed void, as few people trickled to the polls even after the balloting was extended for a third day.

Judicial sources said just 44.4 percent of the electorate turned out to vote, a figure well below the nearly 52 percent turnout in the 2012 election won by the Islamist Mohammad Morsi, the president whom Sisi ousted last summer.

Sisi's supporters in the Egyptian media have been in a panic the past two days.

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