With only 48 hours remaining before the landmark presidential vote in Egypt, front-runner Amr Moussa, former secretary general of Arab League, saw his lead narrowing, according to the latest surveys. Muslim Brotherhood's Muhammad Mursi pushed past rival Islamist candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, who dropped to fourth place, according to a poll conducted by the Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies. Mursi secured the support of 14.8 percent of those surveyed, the state-run Al-Ahram said Sunday, compared with Aboul-Fotouh's 14.6 percent. In the previous week's poll, Mursi had the backing of 9.4 percent of those surveyed. Aboul-Fotouh, who broke ranks with the Brotherhood, had so far consistently been in the top three. Moussa, who also served as foreign minister under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, saw his lead narrow to 31.7 percent for the period between May 14-17, from roughly 41 percent the previous week, according to the Ahram Center's poll that surveyed 1,200 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq was still in second place, with 22.6 percent of those surveyed citing him as their preferred choice for the presidency. The elections are slated to take place on Wednesday and Thursday. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Embassy's vote-sorting commission in Riyadh disqualified 8,277 votes. The remaining 84,005 votes were sorted out by the Commission with the help of 10 representatives from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the presence of presidential candidates' representatives. In the first press conference about vote sorting, Egyptian Ambassador to the Kingdom Mahmoud Ouf said the Commission ensured that the process be transparent and accurate. About a million Egyptians abroad were registered to vote to elect a new president, and 262,000 Egyptians were eligible to vote at their mission in the Kingdom. – With agencies __
