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Live Updates: Second round of Egypt elections Follow the day's action and news as another nine governorates from the Delta to Upper Egypt go to the polls in the country's first parliamentary elections since the SCAF took over
9:48In the port city of Suez, security forces are clamping down hard on campaigning around the polling stations. The city's head of security confirmed to reporters that he has given orders that anyone found hanging banners in front of stations is to be arrested for contravening electoral laws. Persistent campaigning as voters queued to vote was the most cited violation by candidates and their parties in the first round. While not as serious as the blatant practices of vote-rigging and intimidatory violence employed by the NDP in previous elections, the sight of campaigners pushing their candidates until the very step without any shame did put a bitter taste on the two days. 9:00Polls have been open since 8am in the nine governorates, covering the length and breadth of habitable Egypt, electing their parliamentary representatives in this the second round of elections. Votes have today and tomorrow to vote, and in those constituencies where no candidate secures at least 50 per cent of the vote, run-offs will be held on 21 and 22 December. One hundred and eighty seats are being contested by 3,387 candidates in Giza, Beni Sueif, Sohag, Aswan, Menoufiya, Sharqiya, Beheira, Ismailia and Suez. Of those seats, 60 will be filled byindependent candidates with the remaining 120 being aportioned among the party lists. According to official figures, 18.7 million Egyptians will be eligible to vote in this stage with 355,000 Egyptians - most residing in the Gulf - living abroad registered to vote in the second round. How they vote could be more in tune with the past than in the previous round. Writing in Ahram Online yesterday, Gamal Essam El-Din predicts that the main faction to rival the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour Party will come from members of the dissolved NDP. "Overall, NDP remnants are expected to constitute the primary counterweight to Islamist parties in the second round. In the Sharqiya Governorate, for example, Ali El-Moselhi, former NDP minister of social solidarity, is running against two Islamist rivals in the district of Abu Kebeir. NDP offshoot parties, meanwhile, such as the Egyptian Citizen Party, the Conservative Party and the Horreya Party, will together field some 200 candidates. A number of other NDP veterans will contest the elections as independents." The success of the Islamists in the first round was the main talking point in Egypt and beyond, striking optimism and fear in the hearts of their supporters and opponents. The Nour Party alone took 20 per cent of the vote and 33 seats. To put this in perspective, the number of seats won in total by the main liberal alliances of the Egyptian Bloc and Revolution Continues plus the Wafd Party was 35. The Egyptian Bloc's performance in this round is likely to be further undermined by their decision, on financial grounds, to compete for just 30 per cent of the independent candidate seats. Another notable contestant in this round is Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya whose Reconstruction and Development Party is fielding 16 candidates in the second stage, 13 of whom will contest independent seats. The party made a ripple by winning two seats in the first round. Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiyaare believed to be behind the 1981 assassination of late president Anwat Sadat, making their participation alone in these elections a remarkable comment on the opening up of politicial space in Egypt since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
