Turnout reaches 62 per cent in Egypt poll

Turnout in the first round of voting in Egypt's parliamentary elections reached 62 per cent, elections officials said.

"This is the highest turnout in Egypt's history since pharaonic times until now," Abdel Moez Ibrahim, the head of Egypt's Elections High Comission, said on Friday.

More than eight million voters cast ballots in Monday and Tuesday's vote, the first of three rounds for the lower house. Three other rounds lasting until March will elect the less powerful upper house.

The figure for voting in a third of the country's provinces was lower than an estimate from Egypt's ruling military leadership of 70 per cent given earlier this week.

Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from the Egyptian capital, Cairo, said: "Sixty-two per cent of voter turnout, that is about 8.5 million people that voted this week.

"As soon as that figure [was announced] everyone that was in attendance at the press conference started cheering and clapping."

Al jazeera