Egypt's marathon parliamentary elections end amid limited violence

The last of six rounds of voting in Egypt's month-long parliamentary elections closed late Wednesday amid what the state media described as "limited violence."

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 official MENA news agency reported that the voting was marred by limited violence.

"Wednesday's election was marred by violence, however, reported in a limited number of areas," said MENA, quoting a security source.

"Two people were killed and several others, including two policemen, injured in acts of rioting during Wednesday's parliamentary run-off in Fakous town in Sharqiya governorate," the source was quoted as saying.

Sharqiya, some 65 km north of Cairo, is one of the nine governorates involved in the third phase of the legislative polls.

The latest deaths have brought to four the number of people killed in election-related violence since the polls kicked off in November.

The two others were killed during violent incidents in the first phase of the elections which kicked off on Nov. 9 and the second phase as of Nov. 15.

The parliamentary elections were phased over three stages to make sure that there are enough judges and Justice Ministry officials to monitor the polling process in each stage.

Run-offs were held six days after the first round of voting of each stage.

So far the ruling National Democratic Party, led by President Hosni Mubarak, won 222 seats while the Muslim Brotherhood, the de facto largest opposition force, made surprising gains of 76 seats, up from only 15 in the outgoing parliament.

The parliamentary elections will decide 444 seats of the 454- member People's Assembly, of which 10 seats are appointed by the president.

Source: Xinhua