The final round of voting began in Egypt today, and it looks like the Muslim Brotherhood could walk off with a controlling majority of seats in Parliament's lower house. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, the country's mainstream Islamist party, had already won a high percentage of the seats awarded in the first and second rounds of voting. Two of the nine provinces voting today are Brotherhood strongholds, where some of the party's most well-known candidates are running, the New York Times reports.
A plurality, not a majority, was originally predicted for the Freedom and Justice Party. A majority would allow the party to govern alone, but the Brotherhood has repeatedly said it plans to form a coalition government, and has aligned itself with more liberal parties rather than the ultraconservative Salafis, who are in second place with up to 25% of the seats so far. Also today, prosecutors began presenting their case against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Bloomberg notes. His trial resumed last week after a two-month break; state TV today showed Mubarak being carried to and from the courtroom on a gurney. "He deserves an end of humiliation and indignity," said the chief prosecutor, according to the AP. (More Egypt stories.)