CAIRO, Egypt — The candidate of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood won a spot in a runoff election, according to partial results Friday from the first round of voting.

The runoff will be held on June 16-17, pitting the two top contenders from the first round of voting held Wednesday and Thursday. The victor is to be announced June 21.

Nearly complete results showed the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi rising into the second round with 26 percent of the vote, according to the independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, which was compiling official reports from counting stations.

But the race for second place was neck-and-neck between former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq with 23 percent and leftist Hamdeen Sabahi with 20 percent.

By mid afternoon Friday, counting had been completed in at least 25 of the country’s 27 provinces, representing more than half the votes cast. The election commission said turnout in the election’s first round was about 50 percent of more than 50 million eligible voters.

Cairo and Giza, where around 20 percent of the votes nationwide were cast, were likely to be decisive in determining the second-place finisher. The vote counting there was expected to be finished late Friday or early Saturday.

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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