Cairo: Egypt kicked off a long-awaited parliamentary election on Sunday, the final step in a process that was meant to put the country back on a democratic course but which critics say has been undermined by state repression.

Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012 when a court dissolved the democratically-elected main chamber, then dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, reversing a key accomplishment of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Then army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted elected President Mohamed Mursi of the Brotherhood the following year, banning Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement and declaring it a terrorist organisation.

Sisi secured support for his move from other opposition groups by promising a prompt parliamentary vote. Those elections have been repeatedly postponed but will now take place over two rounds on 18-19 October and 22-23 November.

This week, voters cast their ballots in 14 regions including Egypt’s second city of Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast and Giza, a province which includes parts of Cairo west of the Nile.

In a televised speech on Saturday, Sisi called on all Egyptians to head to the ballot boxes and urged the armed forces and interior ministry to secure the voting process.

‘I call on you all, men and women, young and old, farmers and workers from all over the country to rally for the sake of the country... and choose well,’ he said.Egypt has been without a parliament since it was dissolved by a court ruling in 2012.

The 2011 election, held after the uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak, saw candidates from across the political spectrum, from ultra-conservative Islamists to left-wing youths, vying for seats. Egyptians stood in line for hours to cast their votes — many for the first time in their lives — and the Muslim Brotherhood won the largest bloc.

None of the key liberal figures that helped fuel the 2011 uprising, like Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei or former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, are running in the current elections.

In the face of the government’s crackdown and curbed freedoms, lesser known pro-democracy activists who burst onto the political scene in 2011 have either sought exile abroad, withdrawn from public politics or been jailed.

Democracy International, an organization that monitors elections, said Friday it would not be able to ‘conduct the comprehensive observation mission earlier envisioned’ because Egypt had failed to issue visas to some members of its team. The organisation monitored the constitutional referendum and presidential election last year.