28 Nov 2011

Polls open in Egypt's landmark elections

Egyptians have started casting their ballots for the first parliamentary elections since former president Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising earlier this year. Police were stationed outside polling stations across Egypt on Monday morning as elections, billed as the first free and fair votes that Egyptians have seen in over 50 years, began.

egypt elections

Many Egyptians remained worried that there may be outbreaks of violence at polling stations, while others have been concerned that the nation remains polarised over the choice of candidates. In some parts of the country, polling stations had not opened more than an hour after the time scheduled, as ballot papers and the ink used to mark voters' fingers had not arrived. "The two problems are this, one ballot papers arriving very late, secondly, judges are arriving very late [and] some not even turning up," Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reporting from Cairo's densely populated Shubra district