Egyptian voters blocked

ZAGAZIG, Egypt — Police barricaded polling stations and fired tear gas and rubber bullets yesterday to keep supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood from voting in the final day of parliamentary elections. At least eight persons were killed, including a 14-year-old boy.

Supporters of the banned Brotherhood fought back, hurling stones and Molotov cocktails and cornering security forces in some towns.

Hundreds have been wounded and more than 1,000 arrested, mainly supporters of the fundamentalist Brotherhood, which — while banned — has fielded candidates as independents.

The last day of the vote, which stretched over a month, was by far the most violent. A total of at least 10 persons have been killed during the three rounds of balloting, which began Nov. 9 and are considered a key test of President Hosni Mubarak’s pledge to open the autocratic political system.

The Brotherhood had 35 candidates in yesterday’s runoff for the remaining 127 of 444 seats in parliament. Polling is taking place in nine provinces where no candidate received more than half the vote in the third round of polling last Thursday.

So far, the ruling National Democratic Party and its allied independents have won 222 seats. The Brotherhood has taken 76 seats, a large jump over the 15 seats it held in the outgoing parliament. Independents have won two seats and other opposition parties 11.

Government supporters armed with machetes emerged from a police armored car in this Nile Delta city and attacked supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the government’s main rival in the voting.

The Interior Ministry accused the Brotherhood of instigating riots in the northern town of Damietta. Police also cordoned off polling stations in the southern city of Sohag, frustrating hundreds trying to vote.

Earlier, Interior Ministry spokesman Ibrahim Hammad said “the election process is going normally,” apart from 10 polling stations where he accused Brotherhood “thugs” of causing disturbances.

But Associated Press reporters in Zagazig, 50 miles northeast of Cairo, and Sohag, 240 miles south of the capital, saw security forces blocking voters from reaching the polls. AP photographer Amr Nabil was wounded in Zagazig and hospitalized in Cairo.

The elections have been plagued by increasing violence as police and government supporters try to put down a strong showing by the Brotherhood, which so far has increased its presence in parliament fivefold.

Independent monitors and human rights groups have reported numerous irregularities, including busing of state employees to polling stations, tampering with ballot boxes and blockading of polling stations.

The United States sharply criticized the violence, including “intimidation and harassment” and abuse of monitors and voters by Egyptian authorities.

“We’ve seen a number of developments over the past couple weeks during the parliamentary elections that raise serious concerns about the path of political reform in Egypt,” State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Tuesday.