Egypt's opposition Wafd party said Wednesday it would boycott Sunday's run-off vote, charging that there is resentment among the candidates due to "bullying and fraud", reported dpa.
The Wafd party, which is the oldest in the country, won just four seats out of the 508 up for election. It was slated to contest eight more in the upcoming run-off vote.
But Wafd said on its website that "the party received thousands of calls from its members and its leaders demanding a withdrawal from the second phase of the elections."
The party described the elections as "a farce."
The Wafd may not be alone in their boycott of Sunday's run-off. The main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, was expected to announce soon whether it would also withdraw from the run-off or stay on and contest the 27 seats their candidates are still vying for.
In the last election, in 2005, the group held 20 per cent of seats in the lower house, making it the largest opposition bloc in parliament.
But the Brotherhood, which is banned yet tolerated by the government, lost all of its seats in Sunday's vote. The party has also alleged that the first round was rife with fraud.
As expected, Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) swept the parliamentary elections, amassing 41 per cent of the vote in elections for the lower house, or People's Assembly, state-run media reported.
At least 207 of the 508 seats contested in Sunday's poll, went to President Hosny Mubarak's NDP, the al-Ahram daily newspaper reported.
The NDP has the majority in parliament's upper house, or Shura Council.
The government has meanwhile hailed the outcome as a "celebration" for democracy.
The High Elections Committee, which oversees the vote, said that just under 2 per cent, or roughly 1,053 polling boxes, were tampered with and thus disqualified. They also said that 35 per cent of registered voters, around 14 million people, cast ballots.
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