Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian general who played a key role in ousting former President Mohamed Morsi, has won the reader poll for Time's Person of the Year. To claim the title, he beat out Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, viral star Miley Cyrus, and NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Time closed the poll at midnight on Wednesday, and Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, often referred to as simply General Sisi, came out on top with 26.2% of the vote, for a total of 449,596 votes. The Person of the Year title won't necessarily go to Sisi though — the magazine's editors will have final say.
See also: Revolution in Egypt Captured Through the Eye of a Camera
Sisi's victory in the Internet vote came as some sort of surprise, since Cyrus — who ended with 16.3% and 279,300 votes — was leading the poll last week. Her lead was reported to be in part due to efforts by two programmers trying to rig the vote.
Others also tried to skew the popular vote. The 4chan community tried to rig it in favor of Snowden (they had done something similar in 2009 to make Christopher Poole, 4chan's founder, the winner), and even The Syrian Electronic Army was reportedly pushing for Bashar al-Assad as the winner.
But Time told Mashable last week that it was aware of efforts to rig the voting and that only valid votes would be counted. This was confirmed again by a magazine spokesperson Thursday.
General Sisi's victory was mostly due to votes coming from his own country, Time reported on Thursday. In fact, "[Egypt] accounted for the largest number of votes on the Time.com poll."
The graphic below shows the five candidates with the most votes. The official winner, who will end up on the magazine's cover, will be announced Dec. 11.
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Image: Ute Grabowsky/Photothek via Getty Images