|
Four dead in last round of violent Egyptian vote
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-08 09:02
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets in election clashes that killed at
least four people in Egypt on Wednesday, and the Islamist opposition said it won
nine new seats despite police actions to prevent voting.
President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party has maintained its majority in a month
of voting but the Muslim Brotherhood has surprised the country by winning more
than five times the number of seats it had in the last parliament.
At least seven people have been killed since the staggered parliamentary
election started on November 9 and which ended on Wednesday in violence that has
marred the whole process.
Police firing live rounds killed two men north of Cairo, raising Wednesday's
death toll to four, a security source said. Interior Ministry officials, who
have denied police used live rounds in past incidents, could not be reached for
comment.
The government pledged to hold free and fair elections, but rights groups
have accused the authorities of widespread abuses throughout the month-long
elections, including blocking access to polling stations, vote-buying and
fabricating results.
The Brotherhood, which fielded candidates as independents because the
government bans it from forming a party, said it had expected to win 15 to 20
more seats on Wednesday, but said this would depend on the extent of any
security crackdown.
Residents of the Aziziyah village in Zagazig
City clash with the police as they try to enter a sealed off voting
station. [AFP] | "What happened today represents a tragic and dramatic course in the election
process," Brotherhood deputy head Mohamed Habib told Reuters.
"(The ruling party) does not want reform. It does not want a democratic
climate. It wants to keep the political situation completely frozen, stagnant
and paralysed," he said.
The group's Web site said it had won nine seats counted so far on Wednesday
night, taking its total to 85 in the 454-seat parliament. The Brotherhood was
competing for more than 30 of the roughly 120 seats contested on Wednesday.
The Brotherhood and witnesses said a pattern had emerged in which security
forces blocked access to polling stations where the group did well in last
week's voting.
An Interior Ministry statement denied security forces had barred voters and
blamed the Brotherhood for violence. It said security forces were seeking "to
ensure the security of voters."
|
