CAIRO, Jan 11 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's Supreme Elections Commission (SEC) will begin receiving requests by civil society organisations, whether  local or international, to monitor the coming parliamentary elections starting Monday, it announced on Sunday.

The door will remain open for applications from January 12 to January 20, said SEC Spokesman Medhat Idris in a statement.

The commission will announce the organisations it accepted to monitor the elections in a statement it is set to release, Idris added.

The commission announced on Thursday that the elections are to be held on two phases.

The first phase of the elections will be on March 21-22 for Egyptian expatriates and March 22-23 for locals. The second phase is to be held on April 25-26 for expatriates and April 26-27 for locals.

The SEC issued on December 17 regulations governing civil society's observation of the parliamentary elections.

Egypt has been without a lower house of parliament since June 2012 after the lower house was dissolved by Supreme Constitutional Court.

The parliamentary elections are considered the last step in the political roadmap that was announced by the military after the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule.