CAIRO, Oct 1 (Aswat Masriya) - The first phase of Egypt's House of Representatives elections will include 103 general election committees as well as 5,460 polling stations and sub-committees, Marwan Omar, Egypt's Supreme Electoral Committee (SEC) spokesman said at a press conference on Thursday.  

Around 16,000 judges will oversee the first phase of elections, while 87 organisations will be monitoring, including six foreign organisations, Omar said. 

There will be 17,465 local observers and 717 foreign observers from the United States, Sweden, the European Union and Africa.

SEC announced earlier this week that it has approved 2,573 candidates running as individuals and six party lists, two of which are still finalising their documents, in the first phase. 

Independent candidates constitute 65 percent of the contenders, while those who belong to political parties are 35 percent. 

Women candidates are only 112. 

The committee said that it had noted some campaign violations and will take the appropriate measures against them. 

The elections committee said that it has introduced electronic voting boards at all embassies for elections abroad.

Polling in phase one will run from October 17- 18 overseas and from October 18-19 inside Egypt, while the second phase will run from November 22-23. 

The first phase will include 14 provinces; Giza, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya, Assuit, New Valley, Sohag, Qenna, Luxor, Aswan, Red Sea, Alexandria, Behiera and Matrouh.

Egypt's last Islamist-dominated parliament, the first to be seated after the January 2011 uprising, was dissolved in June 2012, when the Supreme Constitutional Court annuled the law on which the election was based.