Egypt presidential hopeful cries foul in expat vote

Campaigners for leftist presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi said Thursday that they had documented "a string of violations" on the first day of expatriate voting in Egypt's presidential poll, a charge denied by the country's foreign ministry.

Campaigners for former army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi illegally distributed flyers inside polling centres in several foreign embassies and consulates, according to a statement by Mona Amer, who leads the Sabbahi campaign's committee for expatriate affairs.

"Moreover, one [Sisi] campaigner verbally assaulted a Sabbahi supporter," Amer said.

She added that some ballot boxes in foreign polling centres were composed of cardboard instead of transparent material, such as glass or plastic, in contravention of electoral regulations.

Amer exhorted Egypt's electoral commission to "immediately intervene to end these violations."

But Egypt's foreign ministry refuted claims that "systematic irregularities" had marred expatriate voting in Egypt's presidential elections.

"We move quickly to address mistakes that happen inside embassies and consulates," Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Ati said.

"There's no credence to reports about voting irregularities or systematic violations," he told Anadolu Agency.

Egyptian embassies and consulates abroad, however, said they were abiding by the rules laid down by the electoral commission and that they took a neutral stance regarding the two candidates.

According to Abdel-Ati, some voters wearing t-shirts bearing the image of one of the two candidates had been asked to leave a polling station in Kuwait.

Eligible Egyptian voters on Thursday began casting ballots at 141 voting stations in 124 countries. The expat vote period will end next Sunday.

There are no exact figures regarding the number of eligible Egyptian voters living overseas.

Egyptians will elect a new president on May 26-27 in the second phase of a transitional roadmap imposed by the army following last July's ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president.

Sisi is expected to win the polls.  Sabbahi, a veteran leftist politician, came in third in 2012 polls won by Morsi.

Meanwhile, the main support bloc of Morsi has called for a fresh week of protests in the run-up to this month's presidential election.

In a Thursday statement, the National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy described the election - the first since the army led by al-Sisi unseated Morsi last July - as a "farce".

Since his ouster last summer, Morsi supporters have staged almost daily rallies to demand his reinstatement.