Voters wait in line to cast their votes during Egypt\'s presidential elections Cairo – Akram Ali The voter turnout for Egypt\'s presidential poll is reportedly lower than that during its parliamentary elections, reports claim. Polling stations opened Wednesday in an

?historic presidential election contested by Islamists and secularists promising radically different futures for the country.
In Minya’s Abu Hilal village, where many polling stations witnessed a low turnout, campaigners for Muslim Brotherhood nominee Mohammed Morsi were dispersed by military police. Some voters complained they couldn’t cast their ballots because their names were missing from the list, even though they had found their names listed online.
In Suez, Giza and Heliopolis, a low turnout has also prevailed. Various polling stations had barely any voting queues.
the State-run MENA news agency reported that one Nasr City polling station employee was dismissed after a voter complained that he told her to vote for Morsi.
However, many more voters are expected on Thursday, the first day of the Arab weekend.
Election frontrunners Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and Amr Moussa have already cast their votes.
Fotouh cast his vote at the Ibn al-Nafees Preparatory School in Nasr City, while Moussa voted at Fatma Anan School in the Fifth Settlement, New Cairo at 8.30am, according to the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm.
“Egyptians should have good judgment in selecting the person who would shape Egypt’s future over the next period,” Moussa said. “We are up to the challenge.”
Al-Masry al-Youm also reported that People’s Assembly speaker and Brotherhood leader Saad al-Katatni entered his polling station quickly but later was asked by one of the voters to go back to the end of the line. Katatni agreed to return back, with voters clapping for him. He told reporters that the people’s choice of president should be respected.
Some 51 million Egyptians are set to vote in an election that is the final phase of a tumultuous transition overseen by the ruling military council after a popular uprising ousted longtime president Hosni Mubarak last year.
After decades of pre-determined results, for the first time, the outcome of the vote in the Arab world\'s most populous nation -- which also pits revolutionaries against old regime members -- is wide open.
The next president will inherit a struggling economy, deteriorating security and the challenge of uniting a nation divided by the uprising and its sometimes deadly aftermath, but his powers are yet to be defined by a new constitution.
Among the contenders is former foreign minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, who is seen as an experienced politician and diplomat but like Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak\'s last prime minister, is accused of belonging to the old regime.
The powerful Muslim Brotherhood\'s candidate Mohammed Morsi faces competition from Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former member of the Islamist movement who portrays himself as a consensus choice with a wide range of support.
The election caps a rollercoaster transition, marked by political upheaval and bloodshed, but which also witnessed democratic parliamentary elections that saw Islamist groups score a crushing victory.
On Tuesday, ballot boxes were being distributed to the 13,000 polling stations around the country, which will open at 8am (6am GMT) and close at 8pm. Voting will take place over two days.
It will be supervised by about 14,000 judges with one judge for each ballot box.
Egyptian governorate courts on Monday ratifiied the authorisation of 170,000 candidate representatives.
For its part the health ministry has prepared 1815 ambulances to assist voters at polling stations.
Former US president Jimmy Carter, the head of the institution that monitors the elections met with Katatni to discuss issues related to election monitoring.
The spokesperson of the Judges Club, Mahmoud Helmi al-Sherif, said that the armed forces would provide military aircraft to transport supervisors assigned to far-flung governorates. Judges had earlier complained about being sent to remote locations far away from their homes.
He also explained that the SPEC had made some errors in assessing the distribution of judges, as some who live in Cairo, were assigned for work in Sinai, for example.
In related news, revolutionary powers prepared to monitor the elections and disclose any violations that could take place, while keeping vigilant against any attempts at fraud.
The April 6 Youth Movement have announced in a press statement the establishment of its campaign that will monitor the elections. the youth campaign, \"Egypt’s Eyes 2012\", using the slogan  \"Participate – Elect – Monitor – Disclose\" claims to have trained thousands of youths and volunteers on how to monitor the elections, while setting up a hotline to report any violations or irregularities. 
Candidates have been campaigning across the country for weeks in an unprecedented democratic exercise made possible by the early 2011 revolt.
A ban on campaign-related activities, laid down by the Supreme Presidential Election Commission for 48 hours before the vote, did little to dim excitement in the capital, as an army vehicle rumbled through Tahrir Square -- the epicentre of protests that toppled Mubarak -- urging Egyptians to vote.
\"Rise, Egyptians; Egypt is calling you!\" a soldier shouted through a loudspeaker, borrowing the lyrics from a popular nationalist song by iconic composer Sayyed Darwish.
The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), in power since Mubarak\'s ouster, repeated its earlier calls for Egyptians to turn out en masse to the polls, while warning against any \"violation.\"
\"The participation of citizens in the presidential election is the best guarantee of the transparency and security of the electoral process,\" Mohammed al-Assar, a member of the SCAF, was quoted as saying by state news agency MENA.
\"We will not allow any violation or (attempt) to influence the electoral process or the voters,\" he added, saying that any person who broke the law would be treated \"firmly and decisively.\"
The SCAF has vowed to hand power to civilian rule by the end of June, after a president is elected, but many fear its retreat will be just an illusion.
The army, with its vast and opaque economic power, wants to keep its budget a secret by remaining exempt from parliamentary scrutiny, maintain control of military-related legislation and secure immunity from prosecution.
Mubarak, 84 and ailing, may watch the election from a military hospital on the outskirts of Cairo as he awaits the verdict of his murder trial on June 2.
The former strongman is accused of involvement in the killing of some 850 protesters during the uprising and of corruption.
According to pollsters, the large number of voters undecided between candidates reflecting radically different trends and the novelty of a free presidential vote, make Wednesday\'s election almost impossible to call.
The candidates are the Freedom and Justice Party nominee Mohammed Morsi, Socialist Popular Alliance Party nominee Abul Ezz al-Hariri, Democratic Generation Party nominee Mohammed Fawzy Eissa, Democratic Peace Party nominee Hossam Khairallah, Salafi-oriented Asala Party nominee Abdullah al-Ashaal, Tagammu Party nominee Hesham el-Bastawisi, in addition to the independents, namely:  former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, former Arab League head Amr Moussa, Islamist reformer Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Mahmoud Hossam Galal, Islamist Mohammed Selim el-Awa, Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi and the leftist attorney Khaled Ali.