埃及开始举行里程碑意义的选举

Egyptians have begun casting their ballots in the first parliamentary elections since a popular uprising ended the 30-year rule of former president Hosni Mubarak in February.Voters stood in long lines early Monday, well before polling stations opened. Thousands of Egyptian judges are monitoring the process. The staggered polls to elect parliament's lower house began in the main cities of Cairo and Alexandria, as well as Luxor, Port Said and five other provinces. A runoff for those areas is scheduled for December 5. Egypt's 27 provinces are voting in three separate rounds in a process that concludes in early January. Elections for the upper house will then take place, ending in March, after which the assembly will write a new constitution.

The influential Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement officially banned since the 1950s, is poised to win a stronger role in a country effectively run by the military for nearly six decades as an authoritarian secular state.But Egypt's ruling generals have established a convoluted electoral system that many fear will result in a legislature lacking credibility. Army generals have made clear the new assembly would have no right to remove a government appointed by the ruling military council. The head of that body, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, defended the army's privileged status in Egyptian society, declaring Sunday that "the position of the armed forces will remain as it is," even after a new constitution is passed.