Egypt Live Blog

Egyptian Finance Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said on Wednesday he had not yet been asked to stay in his post in a new cabinet due to be formed by the end of the week.

Egypt's government has struggled to close a widening budget deficit and foreign reserves are sliding as it tries to support a currency weakened by an exodus of foreign investors and a slump in tourism.

Its woes have been compounded by political turmoil and security fears that deepened last week when protesters demanding an end to army rule clashed with riot police, leaving 42 people dead and prompting the interim government to resign.

The ruling military council on Friday named political veteran Kamal Ganzouri to form a new cabinet that would last until mid-2012.

Asked if he had been approached to stay on as finance minister in the new cabinet, Beblawi told Reuters: "All I can say is that, up to this very moment, I was not approached by anyone".

He declined to comment on any developments in negotiations for an International Monetary Fund financing package that economists say Egypt needs to avoid a looming budget crunch.

Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood is leading in the opening round of the country's first post-revolution parliamentary elections, press reports said on Wednesday.

Early indications suggest that the Islamist movement's Freedom and Justice Party, as well as parties belonging to the hardline Salafi movements, were ahead in six provinces, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported.

According to the independent daily Al-Shorouk, in Cairo "the first signs show the Freedom and Justice Party with 47 percent of the votes, and 22 percent for the Egyptian bloc," a coalition of secular parties.

The vote on Monday and Tuesday in Cairo, Alexandria and other areas was the first of three stages of an election for a new lower house of parliament. The rest of the country follows next month and in January. [AFP]

The Muslim Brotherhood said the parliament that emerges from Egypt's landmark elections should form a government, setting the stage for possible confrontation between Islamists and the ruling generals who have only just named a new prime minister. 

The results of the first phase of the three-stage poll which could bring the Muslim Brotherhood closer to power were due to start coming out on Wednesday, but the military council which took over from ousted President Hosni Mubarak has yet to step aside. 

Millions of voters went to the polls in a mostly peaceful two-day vote, though the calm was shattered on Tuesday night when nearly 80 people were wounded in violence focused around a Cairo sit-in protest by activists demanding an end to army rule. 

The election for Egypt's lower house is due to conclude in early January but early results were expected to trickle out on Wednesday after a high turnout and only minor infringements were reported. [Reuters]

Reuters - Nearly 80 people were wounded on Tuesday when youths threw petrol bombs, fired guns and threw rocks in clashes near Cairo's Tahrir Square, where protesters have been demonstrating against military rule in Egypt. 

Leading reformist politician Mohamed ElBaradei said "thugs" had attacked the protesters whose sit-in demonstration against the generals is now in its 11th day. Twenty seven of the wounded were taken to hospital, the official MENA news agency reported. 

The violence disrupted what had been two largely peaceful days of voting in the first phase of a parliamentary election, the first since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February. 

An organiser of the protest said the trouble started when an unidentified group had tried to enter the square. State media
said the clashes had involved protesters and street vendors but this could not be independently verified.