Archive for Egyptian expatriates

Around 66 percent of Egyptian expatriates have voted in favor of the draft constitution, while 34 percent have rejected it, according to preliminary results.

Of the more than 500,000 eligible expatriate voters, approximately 253,000 cast ballots at embassies and consulates abroad: 160,077 approved of the charter and 74,914 voted it down.

Most of those who voted in favor of the constitution live in the Gulf region. Of the  586,801 Egyptian voters abroad, 261,924 reside in Saudi Arabia and 119,234 in Kuwait.

Expatriate voting ran from last Wednesday until Monday. The Foreign Ministry asked Egyptian embassies and consulates to announce the results as soon as ballot counting is over,  although the referendum is still going on in Egypt. The final results of expatriate voting are expected to be announced during a press conference at the Foreign Ministry in the presence of representatives from the High Judicial Elections Commission.

The vote counting was conducted in the presence of representatives from Egyptian communities abroad and the media.

The majority of expatriate voters who cast ballots in most Western and North African countries voted against the constitution, but did so in far lower numbers than voters in the Gulf.

Egypt's remaining governorates will go to the polls Saturday, after 10 governorates voted last week.

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The President of the High Elections council announced Friday evening that referendum for Egyptians living abroad will be delayed to Wednesday, 12 December, state-run Al-Ahram reported on its website.

 The voting was supposed to begin for Egyptian expatriates on Saturday.

The referendum's delay comes after day of large-scale protests in front of the presidential palace where Mohamed Morsy's offices are located. As of Friday evening, thousands of protesters filled the area in front of the palace gates, chanting "leave, leave."

 

  

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Nearly 50,000 Egyptian expatriates voted in the last two days, with the Gulf nation of Kuwait recording the most voters, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said on its website.

Ministry spokesperson Amr Roshdy said in a statement published on the ministry’s website that the Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait received some 17,000 votes, followed by the Egyptian Embassy in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with about 10,000. The Egyptian Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia recorded about 5,000 votes.

The Tuesday statement showed that some 5,000 Egyptians voted in Doha, Qatar and 3,000 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Egyptian Consulate in Milano, Italy topped participation among European countries with 1,500 voters.

The Foreign Ministry earlier reported that nearly 20,000 Egyptians went to the polls Sunday at Egyptian embassies and consulates abroad.

The Presidential Elections Commission website said the total number of Egyptians abroad registered to vote in the runoff is about 587,000. Out of those voters, 262,000 live in Saudi Arabia and 119,000 in Kuwait.

The voting period for Egyptians abroad is set to end on 9 June. The domestic vote is scheduled for 16 and 17 June.

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy led the first round of the presidential election with 24.4 percent of the vote, followed by former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq with 23.3 percent.

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Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh took the lead in the presidential race among expatriates in Malaysia, with 100 votes. Out of the 468 Egyptians registered to vote in Malaysia, 270 voted in the presidential election.

Voting in Egypt is slated for 23 and 24 May, but voting for Egyptian expatriates started last Friday and ends Thursday.

The Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsy, came in second with 85 votes, followed by Hamdeen Sabbahi with 60 votes, according to statistics by the Egyptian embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

An Egyptian television correspondent in Sydney said that preliminary results show that Amr Moussa came in first in Australia. The correspondent said 1,589 of 2,890 Egyptian expats voted.

Amr Moussa won 865 votes, followed by Sabbahi with 241 votes, Ahmed Shafiq with 179 votes, Abouel Fotouh with 174, Morsy with 101, Mohamed Selim al-Awa with 15 votes, and Khaled Ali with 5 votes. Hesham al-Bastawisi and Abul Ezz al-Hariry each took one vote. Mahmoud Hossam and Hossam Khairallah did not receive any votes.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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The Presidential Elections Commission on Thursday closed voter registration for Egyptian expatriates in the presidential election slated for May.

The commission said 232,000 expatriates have registered their names, in addition to 355,000 who had already registered in the last parliamentary elections, which brings the total number to 586,820 voters.

“The committee had extended the registration deadline from 4 April to 11 April,” said Mohamed al-Shinawy, head of the presidential elections operation room in the foreign minister’s office.

Shinawy said the highest registrations came from Saudi Arabia, with 261,820 voters, followed by 119,204 in Kuwait, 61,391 in the UAE, 32,823 in Qatar, 27,262 in the US, 11,882 in Canada, 10,041 in Italy, 9,107 in Oman, 6,229 in the UK, 5,923 in France, 5,122 in Bahrain, 5,068 in Australia, 3,135 in Germany, 1,986 in the Netherlands, 1,514 in Austria, 99 in Israel, 72 in Palestine and 30 in Iran.

He added that the voting would take place from 11 May until 17 May, with voters downloading the ballots from the elections commission website and emailing them to the Egyptian embassies and consulates. They can also go to embassies and the consulates in person and cast their votes.

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An Egyptian delegation will visit the United Arab Emirates on 12 March as part of a tour of Gulf states to discuss problems facing Egyptians expatriates in the Gulf, a diplomatic source told Al-Masry Al-Youm Tuesday.

The delegation will include Ahmed Ragheb, assistant foreign minister for Egyptian expatriates, as well as officials from the Ministry of Manpower and Emigration, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and the General Authority for Investment.

Shoaib Abdel Fatah, media consultant for the Egyptian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, said that the delegation would discuss issues pertaining to Egyptians working and living in the Emirates.

The delegation’s visit will last for five days, with three days spent in Abu Dhabi and two in Dubai. The delegation will meet Egyptians residing in both Emirates, Abdel Fatah told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Egyptian media reported in April that a number of Gulf countries threatened to withdraw their investments from Egypt and sack Egyptian workers in their countries if former President Hosni Mubarak, once a strong ally of Gulf regimes, was prosecuted.

Major General Ismail Etman, a former member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, denied those reports at the time.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia also had reportedly requested clarification of former Foreign Minister Nabil al-Araby's statements that Egypt was ready to restore relations with Iran.

Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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