CAIRO - The parliamentary elections will take place in three stages to make it easier for monitors to oversee voting, a member of the ruling Military Council said. General Mamdouh Shaheen told a news conference in Cairo preparations for the elections for the lower and upper houses of parliament will begin in September and the vote will commence at least a month after. Exact dates will be announced by the military before the end of September 18, he said, according to the official Middle East News Agency (MENA). Voters will cast ballots for both the lower and upper houses at the same time and the elections will be held in 120 voting districts. A period of 15 days will separate one stage from the next, during which any re-run will be held. Shaheen said staggering the vote would ensure judges could monitor polling thoroughly. "The army's role during the elections will be to provide security only. Only the judiciary will monitor," Shaheen said. It will be the first election since president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February. A military council took over after Mubarak, vowing to hand back power to an elected civilian government before the end of the year. In the last election in November, Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) crushed opponents in what critics called a rigged vote that contributed to the outbreak the uprising that toppled him. The new rules signal a return to the kind of judicial supervision used for elections in 2005, which brought the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, the best organised political force in Egypt after the dissolution of the NDP, its first seats in parliament. Mubarak replaced the judicial supervision with a central committee rights groups said failed to prevent widespread rigging. The Islamist group withdrew from November's election after the first round, complaining of ballot stuffing, thuggery and bribery by Mubarak's allies. It had fielded candidates as independents to get round a ban on religious parties.
