Egyptians are voting Sunday in the second stage of parliamentary elections, a vote that will produce the country's first legislature in more than three years.
Tens of thousands of policemen were deployed in Cairo and the 12 other provinces where voting is taking place.
Despite the measures overall turnout is expected to be low, just as it was during the first-phase vote in which participation was around 25 percent.
Supporters of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi won a landslide in the first round and are expected to do so again.There are no candidates from opposition parties participating in the vote.
Egypt has not had a functioning parliament since 2012, when a court dissolved the democratically elected legislature that had been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood of the country's former president Mohamed Morsi.
Sissi, the former head of Egypt's armed forces, rose to power last year after a military coup that toppled Morsi, led to his eventual arrest and outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood.
The new 596-seat parliament will be the first elected since adoption last year of a new constitution that empowers lawmakers to impeach a president or call for early elections.
With almost all of Egypt's political parties sidelined and three-quarters of the available parliamentary seats earmarked for independents, analysts have predicted the new legislature will overwhelmingly support Sissi and his secular agenda.
Some material for this report came from AP, AFP and Reuters.
