Egyptian voting 'peaceful'

Egyptians do not expect political change

The Egyptian authorities have reported a big turnout in the first stage of parliamentary elections.

Opposition parties do not have any chance to mobilise the voters

Human rights activist Hafez Abu Seda

They said voting was peaceful, compared with the last elections five years ago, which were marred by violence and left about 60 people dead.

However there are reports of obstruction by officials in the port city of Alexandria, where some candidates of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood say their supporters were barred from entering polling booths.

The Muslim Brotherhood has accused the Egyptian Government of rigging the election by arresting more than 1,000 of its supporters in the run-up to voting.

'Fairer' monitors

Human rights activists have said that voters had few real choices.

Women queue to cast their votes

"Opposition parties do not have any chance to mobilise the voters," said Hafez Abu Seda, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights.

However a candidate for the opposition Wafd Party, Othman Ibrahim in Sohag, said that polling had been freer than in previous elections.

The party had publicly urged the government "not to resort to fraud, as usual, to gain the majority of seats".

Voters must choose 440 members of parliament and the president will choose a further 10.

The government vowed that these elections would be free and fair, and so, instead of interior ministry officials, judges are monitoring the poll booths for the first time.

Since there are not enough of them to cover the whole country in one day, the elections are being staggered over three weeks.

Ruling party

The next two rounds of voting take place on 29 October and 8 November, with the new parliament due to convene in December.

Women queue to cast their votes

However the BBC's Middle East correspondent, Frank Gardner, says few Egyptians expect these elections to bring about any real changes to the country's entrenched political system.

The president's ruling party, the National Democratic party, which held over 90% of the seats in the outgoing parliament, is expected to produce a strong showing again.

The Islamists, who once represented a serious threat to the government, have been banned from political life.

And, although some Islamists are standing as independents, they are fielding far fewer candidates than they did five years ago.