埃及人开始议会选举投票。这是二月民众起义终结前总统穆巴拉克30年统治后的第一次选举。星期一早上，距离投票站开放还有很长时间，选民就已经排起了长队。数千名埃及法官正在监督这一过程。以交错投票方式进行的议会下院选举在开罗、亚历山大港这两座主要城市以及卢克索、塞得港和其它5个省开始。这些地区的决选将于12月5日举行。埃及27个省的选举过程分成三轮，将于明年一月初结束。然后将开始议会上院的选举，并于3月结束。新选举出的议会之后将制定新宪法。
20世纪50年代以来被官方取缔的具有影响力的伊斯兰运动组织--穆斯林兄弟会将在埃及发挥更大作用。埃及实际上被军队以独裁、政教分离的方式统治了将近 60年。但是埃及执政的将军们建立了一套有争议的选举制度，许多人担心这个制度会导致建立一个缺乏公信力的立法机构。军方将领已经明确表示，新议会将无权撤销执政的军事委员会任命的政府。军事委员会主席坦塔维星期天为军队在埃及社会的特权地位辩护。他宣布，即使新宪法得到通过，“军队的位置仍将保持不变”。
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.
