18 October 2015•Update: 20 October 2015
CAIRO
Egyptians went to the polls on Sunday to elect members of a new parliament, the first since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi -- Egypt’s first democratically elected leader and a Muslim Brotherhood leader -- in mid-2013.
Polling stations opened at 9am local time (7:00 GMT) and will close at 9pm (19:00 GMT).
Voting will be held on Sunday and Monday in 14 of Egypt’s 27 provinces in a first round of polling. A second round will be held on Nov. 22 and 23 in the country’s remaining 13 provinces.
Voting for Egyptians living abroad kicked off on Saturday for two days, and a second round of expatriate voting will be held on Nov. 21 and 22.
More than 55 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the two-phase election, in which 448 parliamentary candidates will be chosen for individual seats and another 120 from party lists.
A total of some 5,420 candidates are vying for assembly seats in the two-phase polls.
According to Egypt’s official electoral commission, 81 local NGOs and six foreign organizations are monitoring the ballot.
The vote is being boycotted by the political parties that supported Morsi, including the moderate-Islamist Wasat Party and the Strong Egypt Party of former Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel-Moneim Abul-Futuh.
The April 6 Youth Movement, which was at the forefront of a popular uprising that ousted autocratic President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, is also boycotting the polls.
The election had been originally slated for March, but was postponed following a decision by Egypt’s constitutional court, which ruled that the laws governing Egypt’s electoral districts were unconstitutional.
No opposition
Egypt has not had a parliament since the dissolution of its 2012 assembly.
In the absence of a functioning parliament, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi currently holds legislative authority.
In a televised speech on Saturday, Sisi, a former army chief who spearheaded Morsi’s ouster, called on all Egyptians to take part in the vote.
The parliamentary election represents the final phase of a political "roadmap" imposed by the army following Morsi's overthrow.
The army’s roadmap also included a constitutional referendum and a presidential election, the latter of which brought Sisi to power.
Critics of Egypt’s military-backed regime, however, say the polls are being held in the absence of any genuine opposition.
Morsi’s now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group swept Egypt’s last parliamentary election, which was held in 2011 following Mubarak’s overthrow.
The Egyptian authorities, however, citing flawed electoral laws, dissolved the assembly the following year.
