CAIRO - Egyptians who are living abroad began voting on Thursday in the second stage of the parliamentary elections as the Higher Elections Commission (HEC) posted the ballots on its website. The voting process will last until Monday afternoon. The second stage, which starts on December 14 and 15, includes nine governorates: Aswan, Beheira, Beni Sueif, Giza, Ismailiya, Menoufiya, Sharqiya, Sohag and Suez. Egyptian embassies all over the world, as well as 11 consulates, are ready to receive voting forms by mail or in person. “These embassies and consulates have organised facilities to help Egyptians vote,” Amr Roshdi, the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, said. Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr has instructed the embassies and consulates to extend their working hours into the evening during the elections, Roshdi added. The embassies will start vote counting on Monday afternoon, when the voting ends. After finishing the counting, the results will be sent to the Foreign Ministry in Cairo, which will then submit the results to the HEC. It has been reported that about 105,000 Egyptians living abroad are eligible to vote. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), about 18.8 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the second stage of the parliamentary elections, 1.3 million more than in the first round. CAPMAS says that Giza has 4.2 million voters, Beheira 3.2 million, Sharqiya 3.5 million and Menoufiya 2.2 million. It is reported that the 49.2 million citizens aged 18 or above are eligible to vote. Giza Governor Ali Abdel-Rahman said on Thursday that his Governorate will do its best to avoid the mistakes and problems that happened in the first stage, adding that officials are well prepared. Abdel-Rahman stressed nothing will be overlooked, as they have two operation rooms in Giza to monitor the voting process, second by second. The electoral campaigns in Beni Sueif have been fierce in anticipation of the voting, while Governor Maher Bebars stressed that all the necessary preparations have been made there. The Governorate will secure the voting and the transfer of the ballot boxes. Minister Amr has denied that the Western countries have been asking the Ministry about the success of the Islamists in the first stage. “There is nothing to worry about, as there are still two stages left to run,” he explained. Islamists have won more than 60 per cent of the seats in the party lists in the first stage. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won a landslide victory with 36 seats for individual candidates in the runoffs and about 37 per cent in the party lists. The hardline Salafist Al-Nour Party, which espouses a stricter version of Islam than the Brotherhood, said it has won five seats in the runoffs, while the other seats were divided among smaller liberal and Islamist parties. The head of the HEC, Abdel-Moez Ibrahim, says that candidates using religious slogans in their electoral campaigns will be ruled out. Some Islamist candidates and others violated the rules by using religious slogans in the first stage and campaigning next to posters of famous sheikhs. Mohamed Hassan, a moderate Salafist sheikh, says that he didn't allow anybody to use his picture in their electoral campaigns in the first stage. The turnout plunged in the runoffs, with just 39 per cent of the electorate voting, compared with 52 per cent in the initial polling last month, indicating possible disillusionment over an strong early showing by the Islamists.
