Results of Egyptian expat voting in Saudi Arabia halted over ‘irregularities’

Results of Egyptian expat voting in Saudi Arabia halted over ‘irregularities’.(AA).Egypt’s Supreme Presidential Elections Commissions halted the announcement of the results of expatriates’ voting held in Saudi Arabia following a complaint by Islamist presidential candidate Abdul Muniem Abul Fotouh claiming some irregularities, Al Arabiya reported on Tuesday. The campaign supporting Abul Fotouh on Monday requested that the commission send a judge to investigate alleged violations of the electoral process in Jeddah, Egypt’s al-Masry al-Youm reported. The campaign claimed, in a statement, that it had detected certain irregularities. It said that the consulate in Jeddah closed its doors after voting and asked the supervisors to leave and start the vote count the next day. It also claimed that certain political forces collected ID cards from voters and voted on their behalf and duplicate ballots were sent by mail, the Egyptian daily reported. The campaign urged the commission to take legal action against the offenders to protect the integrity of the election from fraud. Egypt’s ambassador in Riyadh, Mahmoud Ouf, on Monday announced that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi was leading the presidential race in Saudi Arabia. He said Mursi received 49.5 per cent of expatriate votes in Riyadh, the country’s largest expatriate constituency, which has over 80,000 registered Egyptian voters, the state-run al-Ahram daily reported. On Sunday, Egypt’s consul in Jeddah, Ali al-Esheiry, announced the Egyptian expatriate presidential poll results in Saudi Arabia’s second largest city, Jeddah. He said that Mursi received 26,934 votes, while Abul Fotouh recieved14,573 votes, al-Ahram reported. According to the announcement by the Egyptian Embassy in Riyadh, Abul Fotouh came in second place after Mursi with 26 percent of the votes, while leftist candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi came in third place and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa came in the fourth place. In a press conference on Thursday, Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr said he and other diplomats in the ministry are impartial toward all presidential candidates. Egypt holds its first truly competitive leadership election in its history from Wednesday to pick the man to replace Hosni Mubarak, ousted last year in a popular uprising. The first-round takes place on May 23 and 24, with about 50 million of Egypt’s 82 million population eligible to vote. According to the official schedule, counting will be completed on May 26, followed by a period when appeals will be heard. The first-round result will be formally announced on May 29, according to Reuters. If any candidate achieves more than 50 percent of the votes in the first leg, he wins outright. That seems unlikely given the spread of candidates, so a run-off between the top two vote getters is expected to go ahead on June 16 and 17, with the result due on June 21.Read the full story here.