(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) Egypt announced on Tuesday extending presidential elections for a third day saying the polling process ends at 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
The official Middle East News Agency (MENA) quoted a member of the electoral commission, justice Abdul-Wahab Abdul-Razek, as saying the committee decided to hold voting for a third day tomorrow.
Aim of extending the process is to give a chance to the largest number of voters to cast their ballots, he stated.
The commission declared that authorities opted to hold a third day of voting in response to desire of many citizens, present in remote areas, and due to the heat wave currently engulfing the nation.
MENA, meanwhile, said campaigns of the two president hopefuls, the ex-army chief, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, and the leftist, Hamdeen Sabbahi, opposed to the decision to extend the elections.
Egypt's second presidential elections in two years kicked off on Monday with only the two candidates vying for the post.
After Egyptians abroad were allowed to cast their votes, the elections' commission announced that the former army chief Al-Sisi had taken an overwhelming majority of 94.5 percent of the votes across 124 countries over his only rival, Sabbahi.
The approximate 314,000 votes in total gathered between May 15 and 19 will be added to the choices of 54 million locally registered voters.
The elections were set after the June 30, 2013 revolution, in which president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood organization was overthrown, and following the January 2014 Egyptian constitutional referendum.
The interim president, Adly Mansour, announced on January 26, 2014, that the presidential election would be held before parliamentary polls.
Al-Sisi had masterminded ouster of Morsi's leadership, accusing him and the Islamic movement of failing to tackle the nation social and living problems and seeking to establish a radical, autocratic Islamic rule.
Morsi, along with other leading activists of the movement, have been held behind iron bars.
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