Egypt elections - live updates
First stage of voting for Egypt's lower house of Parliament
Early turnout reported to be high despite calls for boycott
Arab League imposes sanctions against Syria
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11.33am GMT / 6.33am EST Polling stations which opened late will have their hours extended, according to al-Jazeera's Sherine Tadros.
Egyptian Chronicles reports that 74 polling stations remained closed almost four hours after they were supposed to open.
An election live blog by Ahram online has similar reports:
More reports stream in, indicating that several polling stations have either not opened yet or opened late. Stations have been reported to lack phosphoric ink which is used to ascertain that a voter has only voted once while other reports indicate that judges have not been stamping ballots instead signing them to the great dismay of many voters.
The National Council for Human Rights has received 161 complaints since the start of polling, Ahram says..
11.23am GMT / 6.23am EST: The volatile backdrop to today's elections were underlined by two apparent attacks on Egypt's gas pipelines to Jordan and Israel.
The two explosions happened about 100 metres apart west of al-Arish in Sinai, witnessed said according to this video report.
11.08am GMT / 6.08am EST: The video live streaming site Bambuser has a collection of video documenting the scene outside Egyptian polling stations.
This one gives an idea of the turn out at what appears to be a male-only voting line. The queue goes on and on.
10.40am GMT / 5.40am EST: Leading members of the Egyptian Twitterati are keeping an eagle-eye on elections violations:
@Egyptocracy
Hisham Ibn Mubarak School in N.City, voters waiting in line since 8am and staff arrived at 11.30am. #EgyElections via @ezharwban
@AymanM
Polling Station 347 in Waili has been closed because voting got underway before a judge had arrived to supervise the process #egyelections
@NevineZaki
@Sandmonkey
Please let me know where the worst MB violation in Heliopolis are so I can go shut them down. #EgyEelections
10.26am GMT / 5.26am EST: This wonderful picture (which is featured on Enduring America's blog) gives you an idea of the size of the ballot paper voters are facing.
Speaking after voting 23-year-old Ahmed Eid told al-Masry al-Youm:
It was pretty straightforward. The ballot for the list was like two mete! rs long it took forever to find my candidate. But otherwise it went well, and felt very secure and fair. Every five minutes or so, the judge in charge would change the locks on all the boxes.
9.56am GMT / 4.56am EST: There are queues of up to 1km long in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, according to an election live blog of the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm.
Here's a selection of the election news it has picked up:
Alleged vote buy in Old Cairo.
Widespread flouting of the rules against campaigning including text messages by the Egypt Bloc and the Reform and Development party and campaigning inside polling stations in Assiut by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Undelivered ballots in Assiut and Fayoum. Late arrival of judicial election observers in Nasr City.
Polling at the rate of one person every ten minutes at one station, as voters struggle with a 73-name polling card.
Pushing at polling stations in the Cairo suburb Dar al-Salam and late opening of some of the stations in the area.
9.09am GMT / 4.09am EST Egyptians have flocked to the polling stations in their millions amid a string of logistical problems, Jack Shenker reports from Cairo.
We have already seen claims of judges [who are acting as election observers] who haven't turned up to the correct ballot stations; voters who don't know where they are supposed to be voting; people who have arrived at the right stations and found that the ballot papers are not there yet, and some darker electioneering going on.
A ban on campaigning at polling stations is being widely flouted, particularly by the Muslim Brotherhood, Jack reports.
A sit-in to prevent the new prime minister, Kamal Ganzouri from getting to his office is still! underwa y, Jack reports, but the number of protesters in Tahrir Square has decreased because of the voting and an unusual rain storm in Egypt, Jack says. And a call to boycott the poll seems to be falling on deaf ears, he adds.
We are already getting a lot of reports of [voting] violations. In Alexandria there have been a number of cases of people spying pre-marked ballot papers before the polls had even opened ... There is also a lot of concern about whether the ballot boxes will be secured over night. But there are lots and lots of initiatives aimed at combating violations.
Logistically the system is creaking and it's struggling to cope with the numbers. People know that, which is why they are turning up early to vote and it is why they are having to queue for so long. But it doesn't seem to have put people off ... they seem incredibly optimistic and excited.
9.04am GMT / 4.04am EST: One of the three American students released last week after being accused of throwing petrol bombs at the Egyptian security forces, has been speaking to AP about his ordeal.
"It was the most frightening experience of my life, I believe," Derrik Sweeney said.
The three wandered the streets and wound up in a large group of protesters outside the Interior Ministory, Sweeney said. The demonstrations escalated, with the protesters yelling and perhaps throwing stones, he said.
"Eventually the police shot back something, I'm not exactly sure what," he said. "We didn't wait to see. But as soon as we saw some sort of firing coming from the gun and heard it, the whole crowd stampeded out and we sprinted away."
He said they fled to an area that seemed calmer and were approached by
four or five Egyptians in plain clothes. The Egyptians offered to lead them to safety but instead took them into custody, Sweeney said.They were threatened to be force-fed gasoline, beaten and forced to lie in a near-fetal position in the dark for six hours with! their h ands in cuffs behind their backs, Sweeney said.
He said they were told: "If you move or make any noise, we will shoot you."
"They were hitting us in the face and in the back of the neck," he said. "Not to the point of bleeding or I can't say I have any lasting major scars at this point, but they were hitting us."
8.43am GMT / 3.43am EST Welcome to Middle East Live. Early turnout is reported to be high as Egypt goes to the polls despite continuing protests.
Martin Chulov tweets from Cairo:
It's chaotic & confused. But underway. Flyers near polling booths (a no-no). Crowds & optimism growing @ #Egypt's 1st free vote
Before we get to the latest election news, you might need to do a little bit of homework. Jack Shenker has a very clear explanation of Egypt's complicated election process in a Q&A format.
There is also a useful chart by Jacopo Carbonari of where the parties stand on right and left axis and a religious and secular axis.
Right, here's a round up of where we are:
Egypt
We will not allow troublemakers to meddle in these elections. We are at a crossroads. There are only two routes: the success of elections, leading Egypt towards safety, or facing dangerous hurdles that we in the armed forces, as part of the Egyptian people, will not allow.
The Muslim Brotherhood is poised to make sweeping gains solidifying the conservative Islamic movement as a powerhouse in post-revolution Egypt and an emerging force in a volatile region, writes Martin Chulov. One member predicted the brotherhood would pick up 75% of the legislature, another 25%.
From bananas to tanks, traffic lights to toothbrushes, a dazzling array of weird and wonderful party symbols are on offer to Egyptian voters as they head to the polls. The use of symbols to distinguish between rival parties and candidates dates back to the 1950s and the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser, when an effort was made to help illiterate voters mark their ballot papers correctly.
Activist are calling the people to boycott the elections in order not to give SCAF a legitimacy, the problem is that even if we boycott the elections , it will claim to have legitimacy in a way or another ... Boycotting elections need a campaign , a long one , not just [a] week.
Syria
Syria is facing stiff sanctions imposed by the Arab League after President Bashar al-Assad refused to allow observers into the country to monitor violence that claimed dozens more lives at the weekend. Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday agreed a package of measures designed to force Assad to end his security crackdow! n, free prisoners and launch reforms to find an end to the eight-month uprising.
Jordan's foreign minister says 100 Syrian military and police deserters have taken refuge in the kingdom throughout the eight-month uprising in their country. Nasser Judeh's remarks were the first official public confirmation that Jordan hosts Syrian defectors.
Iran
Iran's parliament has voted to expel the British ambassador in Tehran in retaliation against economic sanctions imposed by the west over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear programme. Iranian MPs on Sunday passed a bill that in effect gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government two weeks to expel the ambassador, Dominick Chilcott.
Yemen
Ali Abdullah Saleh has spread confusion about whether he still his country's effective ruler after he returned to Yemen to issue an amnesty for "follies" committed during the uprising. The amnesty offer seemed likely to further annoy Saleh's political opponents, who have complained that after yielding power, he has refused to step out of the spotlight, leading to confusion about his role, the New York Times reports.
Yemen's vice-president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi has named a senior opposition figure, Mohammed Basindwa, as interim prime minister, the BBC reports. He has been charged with forming a national reconciliation government ahead of early elections in February.
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