With Islamists managing to win a 60% of the seats in the first round of elections, liberals have fewer chances to win in the run-off contests

With Islamists managing to win a 60% of the seats in the first round of 28 and 29 November elections (Freedom and Justice Party 40%, Al-Nour Party 20%), liberals have fewer chances to win in the run-off contests for parliamentary seats.

Egyptians are going to the polls in run-off contests since no-one attracted more than 50% of the vote in last week's first round of elections.

Liberal-secular Egyptian Bloc was left with only 15 % of the vote and Al-Wafd Party with a mere 5 %, according to results released Sunday.

The Brotherhood prevailed in an election that included voters in Cairo and Alexandria, cities where liberal parties had hoped to exhibit their greatest strength. Their FJP party won about 37% of the nearly 10 million valid ballots cast for party lists in the first of three electoral rounds for the Egyptian parliament.

With the second round of the elections to be held within two weeks, liberal movements do not have many cards in their hands left to play, analysts believe.

Mohammed Elbaradei, a Nobel Prize laureate and possible presidential candidate said the liberal youth behind the country's uprising have been “decimated” in the parliamentary elections. He said he hopes moderate Islamists will rein in the “extremists” and send a reassuring message to the world that Egypt will not go down an ultra-conservative religious path.