NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) -- Run-off legislative elections take place in Mauritania today to decide lawmakers in 52 of the 95 parliamentary seats still in contention after a first-round ballot last month.

The second round in the west African Islamic republic is expected to result in a Parliament split into several groups without one majority party.

Votes are likely to be aligned to the two main political groupings -- those supporting the former ruling party and its allies, and parties that had been in opposition to the autocratic regime toppled in a bloodless coup last year.

Registered voters in 33 districts, scattered across this vast mainly desert country twice the size of France, will again be called to the ballot boxes to choose representatives in seats which could not be decided during the first round on November 19.

The parliamentary and local government elections are the first in a series of votes intended to return power to civilian rule at the end of a transitional period undertaken by a military junta which overthrew the unpopular regime of Maaouiya Ould Taya, now exiled in Qatar.

The 19-month transitional period is to culminate in presidential polls in March next year, after which the junta has promised to step down from power.

A coalition of parties opposed to the former regime, which has already obtained 26 out of the 43 decided so far, is vying for 21 other seats today. The former opposition, which has drafted no-party Islamists into its ranks, invited voters "to reinforce the results of the first round."

"Mauritanians voted for the change" and refused the return of "retrogressive forces," it said.

Shortly after the first round, Taya's Republican Party for Democracy and Renewal (PRDR) said it would try to approach the no-party forces who dissented from its ranks, 10 of whom won seats in the first round.

The PRDR won only four of the 46 seats decided earlier but it can also count on the support of three deputies from two allied parties.

"Taken individually, Parliament will be split, but I think that we will see the emergence of two poles: a traditionalist one which includes the former ruling party and its allies and that of alternation, which is the (opposition) coalition," said Mohamed Fall Ould Oumeire, director of the weekly Tribune.

The Assembly of Independents, which is seen as the third voice against the ex-opposition coalition and the former ruling party, is already seen as an arbitrator in the next legislature even before the outcome of Sunday's polls.

"The regrouping will be able to ensure the stability of the future government along with those who share its principles," said its spokesman, Koita Bamariam.

Last month's polls, regarded as free and fair by a cross-section of observers and political parties, were marked by the coming on board for the first time of Islamists, with two deputies. Islamists had been barred from taking part in politics under earlier governments.

After the second round, one in every five deputies will be a woman, according to a new law which has seen the number of women politicians rise to more than 30 percent in local governing councils after last month's election.