Two press conferences daily for NEA during elections

CAIRO – 15 March 2018: Two press conferences are going to be held daily by Egypt’s National Elections Authority (NEA) during the three days of the election’s abroad, March 16, 17 and 18.

The conferences are supposed to tackle all of the elections updates. The first conference will be held at 3pm and the second by 9 pm at the NEA headquarters according to NEA vice head Mahmoud Helmy al-Shrief, on Thursday.

According to al-Shrief’s statement, everything is set inside the NEA headquarters to receive large number of reporters and TV hosts daily.

Earlier on Thursday, Egypt’s embassies and consulates all over the world announced that they are ready to receive voters for the 2018 Egyptian presidential election.

Ambassadors have encouraged Egyptians abroad to participate at the political process which will be ongoing for three days starting from March 16 until March 18.

Due to timing differences, the voting already started at some of the embassies including New Zealand and Australia. Other embassies are expecting to follow during the coming hours including China at 2am, Japan at 6 am and Moscow 7am by (Cairo local time).

On March 14, Egypt’s National Elections Authority (NEA) obligated all international diplomatic missions that will supervise the upcoming presidential election abroad to keep all documents related to the election and voting process, including polling cards, for a certain period, estimated to be at least four years after the election.

The NEA’s decision No. 18 for 2018 states that every mission and consulate should keep copies of all the procedures documents, voters' names lists, polling cards and submitted appeals against the election’s final results.

About 9.5 million Egyptians eligible to participate in the upcoming presidential election are getting ready to cast their ballots on March 16, 17 and 18 in 124 countries all over the world in their respective embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions. Only four countries will be excluded due to safety reasons: Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

The actual number of Egyptians abroad could exceed the announced number by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), which is 9.5 million, according to Minister of Immigration Nabila Makram. This is mainly because “there are a number of Egyptians currently living outside; however, their data is not registered with the embassies,” Makram said during an interview with MENA news agency in February.

“During my tour to meet with Egyptian communities abroad, they expressed their keenness to participate in the political process at any time. Their enthusiasm exceeded my expectations,” Makram added during her interview.