在开罗萨巴拉地区投票的几个妇女声称她们是第一次为选举投票，其中中的蒙娜·阿布德拉曼告诉法新社，“以前投票根本就没用，我们的心声根本没人理会。”
Post-revolution Egypt headed to the polls on Monday for an election clouded by violence and political chaos.
Ten months on from the end of three-decade rule by Hosni Mubarak, ousted by protests in one of the seminal events of the Arab Spring, up to 40 million voters are being asked to choose a new Parliament.
"It was no use to vote before. Our voices were completely irrelevant," Mona Abdel Moneim, one of several women who said they were voting for the first time, told AFP as she cast her ballot in the Shubra district of Cairo.
Voting for the lower house of Parliament takes place in three stages beginning on Monday in the main cities of Cairo and Alexandria among other areas. The highly complex procedure to elect a full assembly ends in March.
The backdrop was ominous after a week of protests calling for the resignation of the interim military rulers, who stepped in after Mubarak's fall. Some 42 people have been killed and more than 3,000 injured.
By mid-afternoon, proceedings appeared to be passing off peacefully and orderly as the army and police forces discreetly deployed around polling stations, where queues formed early in the morning.
"We were surprised that people turned out to vote in large numbers, thank God," Abdel Moez Ibrahim, who heads the High Judicial Elections Commission (HJEC) told reporters. "It was higher than expected."
The poll was in danger last week as unrest gripped the country, but military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has stuck to the schedule and called for a large turnout.
The formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Islamist group, is widely expected to emerge as the largest power when results are published on January 13.
Hardline Islamists, secular parties and groups representing the interests of the former Mubarak regime are all expected to win seats, raising the prospect of a highly fragmented and ideologically split new Parliament.
"For most Arabs, the primary examples of democratic processes in the Arab world are in Iraq and Lebanon," said Bruce Rutherford, a Middle East specialist and author on Egypt at the US-based Colgate University.
"In both cases, elections produced weak, fragmented, and largely ineffectual governments. If Egypt produces the same result, then the appeal of democracy in the region may be weakened. However, if the Egyptian experience is positive ... the effect could be very powerful."
