The ruling military council approved a plan to secure the upcoming presidential elections, a military source said.
The source said that 95 percent of the security forces securing the elections, scheduled to take plan on 23 and 24 May, would be military personnel. The leaders of the military units have already inspected the polling stations and the units have been given specific guidelines for dealing with unrest, the source added.
He stressed that any acts of thuggery or rioting would be firmly dealt with in order to protect the voting process.
"The Second Field Army will secure six governorates: Ismailia, Port Said, Daqahlia, Sharqiya, Damietta and North Sinai. The Third Field Army will secure the polling stations in the governorates of Suez and South Sinai, while the naval forces will secure polling stations in Alexandria, Beheira and Kafr al-Sheikh," the source said.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling military council, met with military Chief of Staff Sami Anan and Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri on Thursday to discuss the final preparations for the presidential election.
The ministers of interior, foreign affairs, planning and international cooperation and justice also attended the meeting.
Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said that as of Thursday morning, over 224,000 Egyptian expatriates cast their votes in the presidential election. He said that each foreign embassy would announce results separately as each of them represents a different district. Expatriate voting ended on Thursday.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
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