Following recent emerged complaints that millions of Egyptians in the Diaspora were in a blackout on how to participate in their parliamentary elections, Egypt has now given directives to all her diplomatic offices around the world on how to vote.
Not only has it given directive but also logistics to assist in their first ever parliamentary elections of its kind.
Egyptians will hold their first ever parliamentary elections November 28, 2011 following an uprising that occurred early this year.
Last week Egyptian ambassador to Rwanda Khaled Abdel Rahman had to calm Egyptians in the country given that they had not received any information on how they will participate in the election.
“I would like to urge Egyptians in Rwanda to calm down since it’s not only them who are affected rather everyone in the Diaspora,” Rahman said.
“We are waiting for a directive and logistics from the electoral commission.” He added.
Igihe.com has learnt that Last Friday, Ahmed Shouaib the Egyptian diplomatic attaché, met Egyptians living in Rwanda at Egyptian Embassy, Kigali to avail possibilities of voting.
“All Egyptians should apply an online application on this official web site http://www.elections2011.eg/ voting is duty that we must all value. This is the time for the Egyptians all over the world to help in building their country.” Shouaib said.
“There are fewer than 100 Egyptians in Rwanda,” Shouaib said, adding “This will help us to manage the parliamentary election process much easier than other countries which have a bigger population of Egyptians.”
The Egyptian parliament consists of 498 seats and 10 members nominated by the president. In the past the Egyptian people used to vote for individual candidates or the political parties’ candidates.
In each constituency, farmers and workers would each have one representative in parliament.
In the 2011 elections, Egypt has restructured to form a new parliament. One third of the seats will be for the independent candidates and the two thirds will be for the listed candidates that represent the political parties or a coalition of parties.
There must be at least one woman in each list and voters can choose a list he or she supports and two other individual candidates- as long as one at least is a worker or farmer.
Mohamed Kamel Heshmat, an Egyptian activist, said in a Skype call, “I like this way, it limits the corruption and increases the chances of the new parties to take place in the parliament.”
Eslam Karam, an Egyptian lawyer and political activist, said on Facebook, “I think this will apply more democracy and give more opportunities for the new ideologies and new political parties to take place in the new parliament.”
Meanwhile some Egyptians argue that this parliamentary election involves a big number of youth due to their participation in the uprising which they say they are immature in politics.
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