Cairo: Egyptian expatriates start on Thursday casting their ballots, kicking off the country’s presidential elections, the first since the army ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi nearly a year ago.
More than 140 polling stations have been set up at Egyptian diplomatic missions in 124 countries to help expatriates to vote for four days, according to the election commission.
More than 8 million Egyptians are believed to be living and working around the world, but only 600,000 have registered to vote in the presidential elections, according to local media.
Head of the election commission Abdul Aziz Salman on Wednesday said that as part of efforts to encourage Egyptians abroad to go to polls, they all, including those on temporary visits, will be allowed to vote “with any restriction or condition”.
“The commission has opened the door wide for every Egyptian, who happens to be abroad at the time of the elections to cast his ballot using his ID card or the passport,” Salman told a press conference in Cairo.
“We hope to see unprecedented turnout in the percentage of voters in terms of millions, not thousands after all the facilities that have been offered.”
Egyptians at home are due to vote on May 26-27 in the elections, which are only contested by ex-army chief Abdul Fattah Al Sissi and leftist politician Hamdeen Sabhi.
Al Sissi, who led the military’s overthrow of Mursi in July last year, is expected to win. His supporters see him as a strongman able to end turmoil and economic deterioration that have hit Egypt for more than three years.
Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood group has vowed to boycott the election, dismissing it as a sham.
