CAIRO: Minister of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriate Affairs Nabila Makram will begin Monday a tour that includes visiting Kuwait, Jordan and Australia “to mobilize expats to participate in the parliamentary elections,” which are to be held abroad Oct. 17-18.
Makram announced her tour during a Sunday news conference, which is her first meeting with the press since she assumed her post in the recent Cabinet shuffle.
During the conference, she announced the launch of a website Monday as part of a new campaign by the ministry called the “Parliamentarian,” to raise awareness of the elections among Egyptian expats.
As the parliament elections will kick off next week abroad, eligible Egyptian expats can cast their ballots without prior registration at 139 embassies and consulates around the world.
In the voting process, expats should present their national IDs or passports that include the ID number and home address in Egypt, in addition to filling a form attesting to residence abroad attached with his address. The form is available on the HEC website.
The elections have been canceled in four countries suffer for security reasons: Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Central African Republic.
A lack of observers abroad to physically monitor the elections has been announced; however, the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) along with 136 organizations have established an operation room to follow up on the elections remotely and receive complaints from expats via email and allocated phone numbers.
The coming parliamentary elections are the first since the 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, after which a future road map was drafted; the elections are the last step in the map following the drafting the constitution and the presidential elections.
In the first phase, some 2,573 independent candidates, including 112 women, will be competing for 226 seats, while six party lists will be competing for 60 seats, making the total number of seats 286.