Egyptian riot police bar voters from reaching polling stations

Riot police barred Egyptian voters from the polls today as knife and gun clashes between supporters of Islamist and secular political parties marred runoff parliamentary elections.

The violence, coupled with wide-scale arrests, contributed to low voter turnout and came amid efforts by the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement - Egypt’s largest Islamist group – to bolster its already impressive tally of 47 out of 186 seats decided so far.

The ruling National Democratic Party has claimed 122 seats and is expected to maintain control of the 454-member legislature at the end of Egypt’s three-stage elections. But the strong showing by the Brotherhood – already tripling its previous number of the seats – has been followed by violence, unrest and detentions.

Today’s runoff was to decide 122 seats in nine provinces where no candidate got more than half the vote in the second round on November 20. Polls closed at 7pm (1700GMT); initial results were expected later today, with final tallies within three days.

Senior Brotherhood member Ali Abdel Fattah said police arrested 680 movement members and supporters today. Earlier, a police official said 140 Brotherhood members were arrested.

At least five people were wounded in the violence, led by armed thugs roaming streets on foot or in vehicles. There were also reports of police intimidation of voters.

Supporters of the Brotherhood, which has been banned since 1954, accuse the NDP of enlisting thugs to threaten voters, while the NDP and other political groups accuse the Brotherhood of instigating the violence.

The Brotherhood’s platform is based on a vague call for the implementation of Islamic law in the Arab world’s largest nation. It advocates the veil for women and campaigns against perceived immorality in the media, but the group insists it represents a more moderate face of Islam than that followed in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia.

Election monitors complained security forces blocked some of the 10 million eligible voters from casting ballots. Judicial official Hesham el-Bastawy said some judges were considering cancelling the vote in some areas due to police cordons at polls.

“When some of the judges protested and demanded that the centres be open to the voters, they were insulted and humiliated by the police,” el-Bastawy told Al-Jazeera TV. “This is a grave development.”

The Arab Centre for Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession said one of its monitors was arrested and police let only NDP supporters vote in the eastern city of Suez.

Interior Ministry spokesman Ibrahim Hammad denied that polls were closed or that police were blocking voters. He said elections were “unfolding in an orderly manner.”