Egypt is holding a second day of runoff elections for the national parliament, with rival Islamist parties engaging in increasingly heated competition for votes in the country's two largest cities and seven other provinces.
Voting in the runoffs for 52 individual seats in Cairo, Alexandria and the other provinces began Monday and was due to end Tuesday. Twenty-four of the races are a contest between candidates from Egypt's two main Islamist groups: the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the ultra-conservative Salafist Nour Party.
Only four individual candidates won seats in the first round of voting last week, securing more than 50 percent of the vote and avoiding the need for a runoff.
Witnesses say tensions between the rival Islamist parties were high in some runoff districts Monday, with Nour supporters ordering Brotherhood campaign workers to leave areas around polling stations. Egypt's military rulers have made polling station zones off limits to campaigners from all parties to try to ensure a fair vote.
The two Islamist parties are seeking to build on strong results from last week's party-list vote held at the same time as the first round of voting for individual candidates. Party-list results released Sunday put the Freedom and Justice party in the lead with 37 percent, with the Nour Party in second place at 24 percent and the liberal Egyptian Bloc in third with 13 percent.
The Salafist Nour party quit an electoral alliance with the Brotherhood before the vote and has given no sign of wanting to renew the partnership in parliament. The secretary general of the Brotherhood's FJP Saad el-Katatni told the Associated Press that his party will try to form a broad coalition that includes liberal groups and new Islamist factions.
Voter turnout for the runoffs appeared lower on Monday than for the first round of voting on November 28 and 29. Egypt's election committee also lowered its estimate of the first-round turnout from 62 percent to 52 percent.
Residents of Egypt's remaining 18 provinces will join the voting for the lower house of parliament in two stages in the coming weeks. Elections for parliament's less-powerful upper house will begin in late January and finish in March.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders have called on their rivals to “accept the people's choice.” Observers had expected the country's best-organized political movement to do well in the elections, the first since a popular uprising in February ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.
The Brotherhood was officially banned for decades under Mr. Mubarak but its members continued to engage in politics as independents while establishing a nationwide network of charities popular with millions of impoverished people.
Egypt's Salafists shunned politics in the Mubarak era but decided to compete for parliament after the military council that took over from him promised free elections.
Followers of the Salafist Nour party advocate a strict interpretation of Islam that calls for segregation of the sexes, the full veiling of women and a ban on alcohol. The party's strong showing in the first round of voting has worried many liberal Egyptians who see it as a threat to their civil liberties.
