Egypt’s al-Sisi wins TIME Person of Year poll
Egyptian general who led ouster of Morsi, installed an interim government, beat out Erdogan, Miley Cyrus as TIME's reader's poll for Person of the Year. Poll also reveals Iran's Rohani more popular then Netanyahu
Sisi garnered some 449,596 votes, (26.2%) of the total votes, emerging victories over Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who received 356,771 votes (20.8%), and Miley Cyrus, who received 279,300 (16.3%).
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According to TIME, the reason for Sisi’s win was massive local support from Egyptians who took to the internet to vote for the general and accounted for the majority of votes in the TIME.com poll.
Unlike TIME’s Person of the Year, which is selected by the paper's and will be announced on mid-December, the Person of the Year poll is user based, and this year user could participate via twitter. According to TIME, a little less than 2 million votes were registered.
Sisi’s victory was in fact an "impressive comeback," because TIME claimed that as as recently as Monday, Cyrus had a 2% lead on Egypt's defense minister.
Other interesting results in the online popularity contest revealed that Hassan Rohani is more liked than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who lost to Iran's newly elected president 79% to 21%.
NSA whistle blowerEdward Snowden blew US President Barack Obama out of the water with a crushing 82% over Obama's measly 18%
Young Pakistani woman's right activist Malala Yousafzai beat Angelina Jolie 59% to 41% and Pope Francis beat Prince George 68% to 32%.
Meet the winner
The man most recognized with Egypt's second revolution is the one who presented Morsi with the ultimatum to peacefully step down, and later won the honor of declaring his ouster. Al-Sisi, 58, was appointed as the army chief of staff and defense minister in August 2012, with his detractors' claiming he had links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Sisi announcing ouster
When appointed, al-Sisi was the youngest of the High Military Council, and compared to his colleagues he avoided the press, maintaining relative anonymity. He was mostly known after the revolution which ousted Mubarak due to his determined objection to the violent treatment of protesters and detainees.
But on the eve of the second revolution, he was crowned a hero by the masses after announcing on the Egyptian state TV channel that "Morsi is no longer president."
Hearing the news, in Cairo's Tahrir Square the crowds rejoiced, and many drivers honked their horns in support of the chief of staff.
"Come to us, Sisi, Morsi isn't our president," the protesters calls. The chief of staff returned their love in the form of army helicopters which hovered over the Cairo sky, hanged with the republic's flag – as befitting the second revolution new face.
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