Source: Egypt's Brotherhood leading in vote count

The Muslim Brotherhood's list leads in initial counting of results from the first round of Egypt's parliamentary election, with about 40% of party-list votes, a party source said on Wednesday.

It remains difficult to assess the precise impact of such a result on an election that will take six weeks for voting to be complete and uses an extremely complex system for allocating seats.

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The first round of voting took place on Monday and Tuesday in the election, Egypt's first since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled by a popular revolt in February.

Voting will take place in different parts of the country in three phases. Of the total of 498 seats in the lower house up for grabs, two-thirds will be allocated proportionally according to party lists and the other third will go to individuals.

"The lists for the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) are in the lead in most of the governorates of the first round," said a source in the FJP, the Brotherhood's party, who declined to be named.

He told Reuters the FJP-led list, which also includes several smaller parties, was leading with about 40% of the votes.

Official results from Monday and Tuesday's votes are expected later in the day. Voting in the first round covered nine governorates, including Cairo, northern cities of Alexandria, Port Said and Damietta, and Luxor and Assiut to the south.

Basil Adel, whose party is part of the Egyptian Bloc, which includes liberal and other parties, said the bloc's list had secured 20 to 30% of votes counted so far in Cairo.

Adel, who is a member of the Free Egyptians party co-founded by Christian telecoms tycoon Naguib Sawiris, said the Brotherhood's list had secured about 40 to 50 percent of the vote in Cairo, while the list of the ultra-conservative Islamist Al-Nour party had 5 to 7% of Cairo's votes.

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