In Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, Africa, Latin America and Asia, 194,348 Lebanese voters are eligible to vote on Sunday in 48 countries, as part of the second day of legislative elections held abroad. In the first set of diaspora held polls on Friday in Iran and a number of Arab countries, nearly 59 percent of voters went to the polls to take part in a crucial ballot for a Lebanon in crisis.

On Sunday polling stations first opened their doors in Australia where more than 20,000 Lebanese citizens are registered on the electoral lists. According to footage sent to our correspondent Michel Hallak, tents from different mainstream political parties were set up outside polling stations in Melbourne.

Today, it will also be the turn of more than 25,000 voters residing in the United Arab Emirates to vote, Sunday being a holiday in this Gulf country. Long queues were reported outside polling stations in the Emirates in 45-degree Celsius weather, according to multiple accounts.

It is however in France that the largest number of expatriate voters was registered, with 28,136 people, surpassing the United States’s 27,984, while in Canada, 27,447 others appear on the lists.

Two days earlier, 18,238 Lebanese out of a total of 30,930 cast ballots in Iran and nine Arab countries, a rate of about 59 percent. A respectable figure according to several commentators.

‘Transparent and fair elections’

As on Friday, the ballot abroad on Sunday is followed live by video surveillance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beirut. The Lebanese Association for Election Democracy (LADE) noted several violations Sunday morning in Australia, some of a logistical nature, others relating to electoral political advertising.

"We want to organize transparent and fair elections," said Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, during a tour of the ministry's operations center. "We will not give any figures concerning the participation rate before the arrival of the President of the Republic" Michel Aoun, who should go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at 10:30 a.m. Beirut time to monitor the operations of the poll, Bou Habib added.

Several observers recently feared that the financial constraints in a bankrupt Lebanon would impact the diaspora vote. The authorities had, however, assured on Thursday that all the obstacles to the ballot, in particular financial, had been overcome and called for a massive participation. The preparations for the vote, it will be recalled, were marked by some controversy, particularly concerning access to polling stations in Australia.