Morsi is UAE Egyptians' choice

Mohammed Morsi received almost double the number of votes in expatriate elections held in the UAE.

Egyptian expatriates in the UAE, casting their vote in the second round of Egypt's presidential elections, at the country's embassy in Abu Dhabi.

ABU DHABI // Egyptian expatriates in the UAE have voted in overwhelming numbers for the Muslim Brotherhood candidate to be their next president.

The Egyptian Embassy announced yesterday that Mohammed Morsi won almost twice as many votes as his rival Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister of the Mubarak era.

After spending five hours counting the votes in front of representatives of both candidates, officials announced that Mr Morsi received 21,298 votes, compared to 10,883 for Mr Shafiq.

Many UAE supporters of Mr Morsi celebrated the results, but still feared that elections back home could turn out poorly.

"We knew that Morsi would win; no one wants the old regime back. Even if you are not religious or you don't like the Muslim Brotherhood, you would vote for Morsi just so Shafiq does not win," said AS, who voted for Mr Morsi.

In the election's first round, AS had voted for Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, whom many view as a moderate Muslim. He left the Muslim Brotherhood last year after deciding to run for president.

Although he secured the highest number of first-round votes in the UAE, Dr Aboul Fotouh finished fourth when all the votes were counted. Mr Morsi was first and Mr Shafiq a close second, and so advanced to the second round. "Last time Shafiq won, and we all don't know how," AS said. "It was a big surprise to many, we knew then that something went wrong with the voting."

Turnout for the second round of elections was around 10 percentage points less than for the first.

During the first round in May, where voters had 13 candidates to choose from, 66.2 per cent (40,443) of 61,000 registered voters cast ballots. Last week, only 55.6 per cent (33,149) voted.

One voter, NE, believes many did not vote because of a lack of options. "Many wanted other candidates to win, but they did not make it," she said. "That is why I did not vote. I don't support either of them."

Theodore Karasik, a politics expert and the director of research and development at the consultancy Inegma, said: "There are other factors to think about, like timing, and who to vote for," he said. "Some people voted because they enjoyed the process and being able to vote, others out of protest."

The ambassador, Tamer Mansour, previously said that the UAE results would not give a clear indication of who might win the final elections in Egypt. There, 53 million are eligible to vote.

The UAE has the third-highest Egyptian expatriate population, after Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Close to 260,000 Egyptian expatriates voted in the second round, about two-fifths of them in Saudi Arabia.