Egypt’s El-Sissi Wins Time Person of The Year Reader’s Poll

Egyptian Army Chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has been voted TIME’s Person of the Year in the magazine’s reader’s poll, the magazine announced Friday.

With 26.2 percent of the votes, el-Sissi, who is also Egypt‘s defense minister, was ranked first, followed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with 20.8 percent of the votes, and American pop singer Miley Cyrus, who raked in 16.3 percent of the votes.

El-Sissi played a leading role in ousting Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in August 2012, and was subsequently appointed deputy prime minister.

According to TIME, ” Sisi’s numbers were driven by massive support from his native Egypt: the country accounted for the largest number of votes on the TIME.com poll. India and the United States provided the second and third highest number of responses, respectively.”

More than 1.3 million votes were submitted on TIME’s website, the magazine reported, with an additional 560,000 being registered via Twitter, bringing the total number of votes cast in the 2013 reader’s poll to 1,928,130.

TIME readers were asked to vote for the person they think most influenced the news over the past year for better or for worse.

The official TIME person of the year is chosen by the magazine’s editors and will be announced on Wednesday December 11. Last year, U.S. President Barack Obama won the editor’s pick, with Morsi, who was at the time Egypt’s president, as one of four runners up.