CAIRO: After years of struggling for their right to vote in elections as their fellow Egyptian citizens, Egyptians living abroad now have the right to vote in any election after the Egyptian Cabinet approved the electronic voting system proposed for Egyptians living abroad this week. The new system is to be applied during the next parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled to take place later this year. Egyptians abroad had long demanded their right to be allowed to vote in parliamentary and residential elections during the era of ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Their demands were never met. They formed coalitions and movements for this purpose and staged protests in front of Egyptian embassies in the United States, Canada and European Countries. The Egyptian government will also apply the electronic voting system in three Egyptian governorates and it will be applied by both the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Interior, and the governorates will be announced soon, the Cabinet said in a statement. The decision was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Yehia El-Gamal, who added that the project was proposed by Minister of Communication Maged Othman and will be extended to Egyptians abroad. The decision comes as a part of the government`s plan to expand the voting percentage and to increase the democratic participation, Gamal said. State-owned al-Ahram daily newspaper quoted the minister of interior as saying that the ministry was not ready to apply the project to all governorates and this led the Ministry of Communication to choose only three. BM
