Violence was the most prominent phenomenon. (Reuters)

Brotherhood deputy leader Mohammad Habib told Reuters 35 of his candidates would contest run-offs on Saturday, November 26.

The group had fielded 60 candidates in stage two, which decides 144 seats.

"If the elections had taken place in a good way, like the first stage, 35 of those would have won," Habib said.

The group's strong performance in the first stage aggravated the NDP and sparked the crackdown "to reduce the number of voters and consequently the number of winners", he said.

Police arrested about 470 activists from the officially banned MB during and ahead of voting on Sunday, November 20, according to Reuters.

Police and armed gangs blocked polling stations in some MB strongholds, witnesses said.

A Muslim Brotherhood official in Alexandria charged that the NDP had given thugs T-shirts inscribed with the Brotherhood's campaign slogan "Islam is the solution" to mislead monitors.

"The success recorded by the Muslim Brothers during the first phase sparked fear in the regime, which cannot bear the presence of opposition in parliament," Habib told AFP.

"The NDP could see it was going to lose and resorted to violence and thugs against the Muslim Brotherhood. All this was aimed at preventing people from voting," he added.

"Who can hit the hardest?" was the headline of Egypt's leading independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom, which carried front page pictures of men and teenagers wielding swords, with their backs protected by security forces, en addition to another picture of a candidate holding a handgun.

Monitoring groups deplored the violence and complained that they had been given less access to the polling process than in the previous round.

"The electoral process has been marred by serious and widespread violations that have undermined the credibility and the integrity of the election," said a statement by one of the main civil society organizations, the Independent Committee for Election Monitoring.

In the outgoing People's Assembly, the NDP controls 404 out of 454 seats, while the Muslim Brothers were the largest opposition force but with only 16 seats.

Legal parties need five percent of parliament -- or 25 seats -- to field a candidate in presidential elections.

But independents require the approval of at least 65 members, according to a constitutional amendment which the Brotherhood says was initially designed to prevent it from running.