Counting begins in Egypt election

Ballot counting has begun in Egypt after two days of historic voting to choose the country's first democratically elected president, with the Muslim Brotherhood claiming lead.

Early on Friday morning, the Brotherhood, the country's most powerful political force, announced that its candidate was in the lead, followed by a divisive former civil aviation minister more closely tied to Mubarak than anyone else in the race.

However, the overall picture will not be clear for some time. The presidential election commission did not plan to release official results until Tuesday.

If no one wins more than half the votes needed for outright victory in the first round, the top two candidates will contest a 16 and 17 June run-off.

The Brotherhood's estimate was based on results from 236 of roughly 13,000 polling stations. Campaigns were allowed to station observers in the polls throughout the voting and counting process, and the influential Islamist group had placed staff in nearly each one.

The Brotherhood is hoping for a presidential victory to seal its political domination of Egypt, as it already holds nearly half of parliament after victories in elections late last year.

Though the Brotherhood's candidate, Mohammed Morsi, looked relatively secure in his lead, the rest of the race remained unclear, with an ex-Brotherhood doctor, a former secretary-general of the Arab League and a socialist former parliamentarian jostling for second place, according to Brotherhood and local media estimates.

Around 50m people were eligible to vote in the polls, in which 13 candidates are vying for the presidency more than a year after Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power after 18 days of mass protests.

As well as Mr Mursi, the frontrunners include two former Mubarak-era officials, ex-PM Ahmed Shafiq and former head of the Arab League Amr Moussa, and Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, an independent Islamist candidate.

If no contender gains more than 50% of the vote, the two leading candidates will compete in a run-off next month.

As the morning wore on, unofficial media reports based on campaign observers made predictions impossible, as vote leads passed from candidate to candidate.

Though turnout around Cairo and other governorates appeared to drop slightly compared to Wednesday, the country's presidential election committee on Thursday estimated that around 50 per cent of registered voters turned out.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has congratulated Egypt on its "historic" presidential election, and said Washington was ready to work with a new government in Cairo.

"We will continue to stand with the Egyptian people as they work to seize the promise of last year's uprising and build a democracy that reflects their values and traditions, respects universal human rights, and meets their aspirations for dignity and a better life," Clinton said in a statement.

The presidential elections come months after parliamentary polls which the Brotherhood won handsomely.

Parliament was meant to form an assembly to draft a new constitution before the presidential vote, but when the Brotherhood was perceived to be using its near parliamentary majority to stack the assembly's deck, other representatives pulled out and the assembly was shelved.