CAIRO: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday set Nov. 28 as the date for a parliamentary election which the outlawed opposition Muslim Brotherhood has vowed to contest despite a wave of arrests.
A total of 508 elected seats are up for grabs in the legislature, which is currently dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party. Another 10 are filled by the president.
Run-offs will be held on Dec. 5, the official MENA news agency reported.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which fields candidates as independents to get round a ban on religious parties, won a fifth of the seats in the last election in 2005, despite a police crackdown that closed down polling stations.
Since the group announced on Oct. 9 that it would contest 30 percent of seats, police have arrested more than 150 of its members, the Brotherhood says. Most have since been released.
Both the Brotherhood and legal opposition parties with seats in parliament have rejected calls by former UN nuclear chief turned government critic Mohamed ElBaradei for a boycott of the election.
