Egypt Islamists Claim Lead in 2nd Election Round

Egypt's largest Islamist parties claimed the lead in the second round of a multi-stage legislative election, confirming them as them as front-runners in the first post-revolution parliament.

The second round of elections which took place in nine provinces over two days saw a 67 percent turnout, election commission chief Abdul Moez Ibrahim told reporters.

The ruling military, which took power when Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February, has decided on a complex election system in which voters cast ballots for party lists, which will comprise two thirds of parliament, and for individual candidates for the remaining third of the lower house.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party (FJP) said it won 39 percent of votes in the party lists, with no outright winner for their individual candidates who face a run-off on Wednesday.

The al-Nour party, which represents the more hardline brand of Salafi Islam has claimed over 30 percent of votes in the lists.

"We have won 39 percent of the votes so far in the lists," the FJP office told Agence France Presse.

Al-Nour confirmed that it had gained "over 30 percent in the lists for the second round."

"The FJP is definitely number one, we have come second," al-Nour spokesman Mohammed Nour told AFP, adding that most of their candidates will face a run-off on Wednesday.

Voting took place in a third of the country's 27 provinces. However, voting for the party lists was postponed until Wednesday in the Nile Delta provinces of Menufiya and Beheira and in the southern governorate of Sohag.

Islamist parties trounced their liberal rivals in the first round of the elections which kicked off on November 28, securing around 65 percent of all votes cast for parties.

The Muslim Brotherhood had been widely forecast to triumph as the country's most organized political group, well known after decades of charitable work and opposition to the 30-year regime of Hosni Mubarak.

But the showing from Salafist groups, which advocate a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, was a surprise, raising fears of a more conservative and overtly religious 498-member new parliament.

The results in Egypt fit a pattern established in Tunisia and Morocco where Islamists have also gained in elections as they benefit from the new freedoms brought by the pro-democracy movements of the Arab Spring.