Live updates: Early days in Egypt elections

After Monday's massive turnout, Egyptians voted for a second day in the first round of parliamentary elections

Women vote in polling station at school in Zamalek on 2nd day of Egypt elections, 29 November 2011 (Photo: Reuters)

21:31  Ahmed El-Zend, head of the Judges' Club, has revealed that over 25 judges commissioned to supervise the voting are currently imprisoned by thousands of people who penetrated five Cairo-based electoral committees after the closure of ballot.

El-Ahd El-Gedid School in Rod El-Farag, Hemeit El-Zatoun Girl School, Om El-Moomenin School in Sahel, El-Koba School in Zeitoun and El-Zawia School are the five polling stations that were affected.

21:25  It's worth noting that the coverage being broadcast on private and state television from inside the counting stations is unprecedented in Egypt.

21:20  Further corroboration of charges of electoral irregularities by groups and parties, especially Islamists. One World for Development, a non-profit civil society organisation that has monitored the first two days of voting in Egypt’s parliamentary elections, has documented a substantial list of violations and irregularities in the voting process.

These violations include:

Supporters of both the Salafist Al-Nour Party and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party persisted in illegally campaigning outside polling stations.

Salafists posted fatwas (religious decress) at the entrances to some polling stations reminding voters that it would be sacrilegious not to vote for their Al-Nour Party.

Election clerks failed to verify the identity of many fully veiled women voters.

The Freedom and Justice Party and the liberal Egyptian Bloc both broke campaign regulations in Boulaq in Cairo as they competed inside of polling stations to influence voters’ choice up to the last minute.

The Egyptian Current party slams the police securing the East Cairo counting station for preventing the Revoltuion Continues candidate Tasser Abdel Salam from entering, as is his right.  

20:44  More images on state TV from counting stations. In Cairo. the station for downtown, Zamalek and Qasr El-Eini is empty whereas Fayoum, where the counters are busy going through the ballot papers, makes for better television.

20:21  Mohamed El-Sherbini, spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, says the two day of voting has resulted in 35 injuries. Ten of these, he adds, were from today.

El-Sherbini goes on to reveal that of the cases, 14 are from Cairo, four Assiut, three Fayoum, seven Alexandria, three in Luxour and one in Damietta. Three more hail from unspecified areas.

He also said 12 of the injured were treated on the spot while 23 were hospitalised. Only five remain under observation in hospital.

Six of the voters suffered fractures and bruises due to heavy crowds during voting. Other suffered high or low blood pressure. 

Meanwhile, ballot boxes are being transported in armed forces' vehicles to their counting stations. In past elections, the police were tasked with escorting the few votes there were. 

20:05  Egypt's National Human Rights Council reports that is has received more than 1,000 complaints regarding electoral violations in the two days of voting. Most of these complaints concern illegal campainging by Islamist group,s, according Hazem Mounir from the council's Electoral Monitoring Unit. 

19:53  State TV is broadcasting from the counting station in Luxor where the ballot boxes are starting to arrive. Counting will continue through the night in the nine governorates that voted in this first round with the individual candidate results expected tomorrow morning.  

19:37  General Ismail Atman, a member of the military council ruling Egypt, has told Al Jazeera of his certainty of how the voter turnout in the first round of elections will prove to be.  "There is no actual or definitive estimate, but I assure you that, until now, it will go above 70 per cent. I hope it will reach more than 80 per cent by the end of the day," he said with unbridled confidence.

Reuters report an independent monitoring official as saying the turnout "could easily rise above 50 per cent."

19:10  In the Ain Shams district of Cairo, where polling stations remained closed yesterday until as late as 6pm, voters are still being allowed to cast their ballot, according to eyewitnesses.

State TV is broadcasting images of voters still waiting at a polling station In Alexandria.

19:01  It's gone 7, the official cut-off point for voting in the nine governorates involved in the first round of parliamentary elections.

18:55  Five minutes to go in the first round of voting. Even though the head of the Supreme Electoral Commission stated yesterday that polling stations will remain open until everyone has a chance to cast the vote, from the quieter scenes and shorter queues today, it seems the 7pm cut-off will be when the doors shut.

17:56  The minister of foreign affairs, Mohamed Kamel Amr, has reported to the outgoing cabinet of Essam Sharaf that ballot boxes from 100 Egyptian embassies around the world have arrived in Cairo. Amr said that preliminary counts show that between 60 to 70 per cent of Egyptians registered in embassies abroad cast ballots in the parliamentary elections, and that the ministry is waiting for more diplomatic missions to send their boxes.

17:46  Two organisations, Justice for Human Rights and Kalema for Protecting Citizen Journalists, report that supporters of the Salafist Al-Nour party have attacked activist Mohamed Abdel Aziz in the city of Fayoum. The Salafists are accused of beating Abdel Aziz and breaking his camera after spotting him taking photos of them illegally campaigning at a polling station in the village of Sanhour.

The Salafists are certainly doing their best to emulate past Egyptian electoral traditions.

17:41  Yosri Hammad, spokesman of Al-Nour party, has apologised after a photo depicting the image of a church and the slogan "Your vote goes to the cross protectors" was edited to appear as a flyer for the liberal Free Egyptians party and posted on the Salafist's Facebook page.

17:38  Cairo's deputy governor has come out and stated that voter turnout in the capital “might exceed 80 per cent” of those eligible to vote. With Cairo the most populated governorate in the country this says a lot about where these elections stand compared to those of recent past. Although where his numbers come from he did not say, hence that "might."

The main Egyptian market index, the EGX30, ended the day up 5.48 per cent and with a sigh of relief after two days of voting passed mostly without violence. This gain klames today the market's best since the revolution, confirms Mustafa Badra, a capital market expert. We'll be publishing our daily Market Report shortly.

16:55  Hafez Abu Seada, head of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), who is running as an independent in the Basateen district of Cairo has said on Twitter that unknown individuals attacked his supporters in the constituency's El-Khalifa neighbourhood. Abu Seada added that one friend was injured before the Army intervened and brought the fight to an end.

In a previous tweet , Abu Seada reported an attack on his supporters in the El-Imamain polling station in El-Khalifa by the former regime. Abu Saeda states that men wielding chains and swords were responsible for the violence, which the local police chief is now inspecting.

16:27   The SEC has re-opened polling stations numbers 84 and 85 at College De La Salle School in the Qasr El-Nil constituency in Cairo after the supervising judge shut them down because of electoral violations, clashes and other reasons which the judge did not elaborate on. 

16:19   Three judges failed to turn up today at three different polling stations in the Ain Shams constituency – a logistical issue that has characterised the past two days of polling. The other supervising judges in the polling stations have reported these transgressions to the Judges’ Club who have in turn reported them to the Supreme Electoral Commission. The three absent judges were among the 11 judges that were forcefully detained on Monday at voting stations in the Ain Shams district by angry voters incensed at the delayed arrival of ballot papers.  

15:33   A security source told Ahram Online that the gun fire that took place earlier in Al-Sawwah had nothing to do with the elections process, pointing out that the violence occurred far from the polling station near Shubra El-Kheima. Three gunmen, as yet unidentified, fired on people with automatic rifles, wounding two and killing one.  Security forces managed to apprehend one of the shooters. 

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg