The first phase polling for the long-awaited parliamentary election started in Egypt on Sunday. The election is considered the final step of the process meant to put the country back on a democratic course, which critics say has been undermined by state repression.
Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012 when a court dissolved the democratically elected main chamber, then dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, reversing a key accomplishment of the 2011 uprising that toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime.
The then army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, ousted the elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Brotherhood, the following year, banning Egypt's oldest Islamist movement and declaring it a terrorist organisation.
Sisi secured support for his move from other opposition groups by promising a prompt parliamentary vote. Those elections have been repeatedly postponed but will now take place in two rounds on Oct 18-19 and Nov 22-23.
This week, voters cast their ballots in 14 regions, including Egypt's second largest city of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast and Giza, a province which includes parts of Cairo west of the Nile.
In a televised speech on Saturday, Sisi called upon all Egyptians to head to the ballot boxes and urged the armed forces and the interior ministry to secure the voting process.
"I call on you all, men and women, young and old, farmers and workers from all over the country to rally for the sake of the country... and choose well," he said.
