Leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi conceded defeat Thursday after preliminary results from Egypt's presidential election gave ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi 96 percent of the vote.

Speaking at a news conference, Sabbahi said "I accept my defeat and respect the people's choice" in the three-day election that ended on Wednesday.

A European Union team that observed Egypt's presidential election said Thursday the vote was conducted "in line with the law," although it regretted the lack of participation of some "stakeholders."

Preliminary results from the three-day election that ended on Wednesday gave 96 percent of votes to Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the ex-army chief who toppled Islamist president Mohammed Morsi last year.

Ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has scored a crushing presidential election triumph and consolidated the grip of the military, 11 months after the overthrow of the only Egyptian president not drawn from its ranks.

Ninety-six percent of voters, at least 21 million Egyptians, chose retired field marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who deposed elected Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, with ballots counted from all but a handful of 352 stations, state television reported Thursday.

Polls closed Wednesday in an Egyptian presidential election seen as a plebiscite on the ex-army chief frontrunner, after voting was extended when turnout fell below that won by the Islamist leader he deposed.

Ballot counting has already begun, and preliminary results are expected overnight, with ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi certain to win an overwhelming majority against leftist rival Hamdeen Sabbahi.

Egypt gave voters an extra day to cast ballots for a president Tuesday, in a surprise move amid a reportedly low turnout in the first election since the overthrow of the Islamist leader.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the ex-army chief who toppled Islamist president Mohammed Morsi last year, is the clear frontrunner. But his campaign had hoped for a large turnout as a decisive show of support.

The ex-army chief who ousted Egypt's first democratically elected leader and crushed his Islamist movement was set for a landslide presidential election win on Tuesday, the final day of voting.

The two-day election is the first since the frontrunner Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July, a move that unleashed the bloodiest violence in Egypt's recent history.

As Egyptians vote for a president Monday, a gutted police building in the Muslim Brotherhood stronghold of Kerdasa stands as a monument to the brutal divide left by the overthrow of Egypt's Islamist leader.

The frontrunner is Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the now retired army chief who ousted elected president Mohammed Morsi last July, in what many here call a bloody military coup.

Saudi Arabia has arrested nine university professors for their alleged links to the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement, media reported on Monday.

Investigators found the professors, two Saudis and the rest from neighbouring countries, had been involved with "foreign organisations" based on "voice recordings and emails" linked to them, Okaz daily reported.

Egyptians voted for a new president Monday in an election expected to give a landslide victory to the ex-army chief who ousted the country's first democratically-elected leader and crushed his Islamist movement.

The two-day election is the first since the frontrunner Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July, a move that unleashed the bloodiest violence in Egypt's recent history.

Influential Egypt-born cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi on Sunday issued a fresh call to boycott the Egyptian presidential vote which ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted the elected Islamist leader, is expected to easily win.

"Don't take part in electing a man who is soaked from head to toe in the blood of innocents," the Qatar-based backer of the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement.