Brotherhood says it leads in Egypt vote count

A member of the rival liberal Egyptian Bloc also said that in Cairo, one area that voted on Monday and Tuesday, the list led by the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) had 40 to 50 per cent of votes. His bloc had 20 to 30 per cent, he said.

Partial official results were due later on Wednesday but party representatives have been monitoring the count under way after the first stage of Egypt’s first free election since army officers drove the king into exile in 1952.

The overall outcome will not be known until January. The election is spread over six weeks with different parts of the country voting separately in three phases, each of which may be followed by run-off votes. Under an elaborate system that makes it difficult to predict the outcome, two-thirds of the 498 elected seats go to party lists and the rest to individuals.