Abu Dhabi: Mohammad Mursi, who leads the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood has taken the lead in votes cast by expatriates in the UAE, said Tamer Mansour, Egypt’s ambassador to the country.

Mursi won 21,289 out of total 33,145 valid votes cast by the Egyptians in the UAE, securing nearly 64 per cent of the votes.

Ahmad Shafiq, the last prime minister in former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime, received 33 per cent of the votes or 10,883.

Nearly three per cent of the votes were invalid, while the turnout was put at 56 per cent, down by 10 per cent compared to the first round of the presidential elections.

Eligible voters among Egyptians living abroad are estimated at 586,000, according to official figures. They were given a week starting from June 3 to cast their ballots at Egypt’s diplomatic missions for the first time in the presidential election.

Egyptians at home are to go to polls on June 16-17 to elect their first president since a popular revolt toppled Mubarak in February last year. A winner is set to be declared on June 21

The results come only a couple of days before Egypt’s Constitutional Court will on Thursday to look into a Presidential Elections Committee’s appeal against the ‘political exclusion law — a ruling that may turn the political transition in Egypt into a state of utter disorder as Egypt’s presidential election may have to be abandoned, its newly elected parliament could be dissolved and the country’s new constitution has yet to be drafted.

The parliament-proposed law forbids those who held high posts in government during the past 10 years and until February 11, last year from running for president. The law targets those who served as vice-president, prime minister or National Democratic Party’s head or secretary general.

The law was drafted with the purpose of preventing Shafiq, who served as Mubarak’s last premier before his ouster, from running in Egypt’s first presidential election after January 25.

In the same session, the court plans to look into a Supreme Administrative Court’s appeal in regards to the constitutionality of Egypt’s parliament law.

While every political party was allowed to field only one candidate for each district, some fielded more as independents which gave them an upper hand which some feared undermined the legitimacy of the process.