A third Egyptian man was killed and 20 others injured late Wednesday when riots erupted after polls closed in the Nile Delta region, the official MENA news agency reported.

"The riots came while election officials were transferring ballot boxes from al-Qatawiya village to a main electoral committee in Abu Hammad city for vote counting," said MENA.

The latest death has brought to three the number of people killed in the final day of voting of Egypt's six-round, three- staged parliamentary elections.

MENA said earlier two other men were killed in election-related violence in Fakous, another town in Sharqiya.

Sharqiya, 65 km north of Cairo, is one of the nine governorates involved in the third and final phase of the month-long legislative polls.

Meanwhile, a candidate was admitted to hospital after an unidentified person threw a stone at him while polls were closing in Tama town in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag, 400 km south of Cairo, MENA said.

In another development, police arrested four people on charges of rioting and setting fire to tires on the highway linking Sohag to Asyut province, 330 km south of Cairo, it added.

Egypt's marathon parliamentary elections drew to an end late Wednesday.

Polling stations in 67 constituencies in nine governorates involved in the run-offs in the third and final phase of the legislative polls, which kicked off on Dec. 1, were closed at 7:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).

Formal results of the voting in which 121 seats were competed by some 254 candidates, including 201 from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and 35 from the banned but usually tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, are expected to be announced on Thursday or Friday.

The first and second phases of the legislative polls kicked off on Nov. 9 and Nov. 15 respectively, with run-offs held six days after the first round of voting of each stage.

Source: Xinhua