By
The Associated Press
EL-AMAR, Egypt Police fired live ammunition and pummeled opposition supporters with batons and tear gas in clashes yesterday that left five people dead and 40 injured during the final round of parliamentary voting.
In the Nile Delta village of El-Amar, 20 miles north of Cairo, fighting erupted when supporters of an independent candidate broke down the doors of polling stations after they were not allowed to enter to vote, according to residents and police speaking on condition of anonymity.
Four people were killed and five injured there.
Hundreds of voters in Shubra El Kheima, in northern Cairo, also clashed with police yesterday when polls did not open on time. Police, some on horseback, fired into the crowd after attacking the protesters with batons and dogs and using tear gas. That clash left one dead and 35 people - including children - injured.
Police also blocked polling stations and fired tear gas at would-be voters in the southern Cairo district of Maadi. In Hawamdiya, another district south of Cairo, police detained 75 people for election-related disturbances, according to the police officials.
"Is this the democracy that (President Hosni) Mubarak is calling for?" asked Kamal Abdel Karim, who said he was prevented from entering a polling station in Maadi. Other voters complained about confusion over voting rolls and polling stations opening late.
Egyptians in eight provinces voted in runoffs for 125 parliamentary seats for which no candidate won a majority in voting Nov. 9.
After the violence in the impoverished Nile delta village of El-Amar, a black-clad Sana Abu Yehia cried inconsolably as she mourned her son, 22-year-old Ayman Shabrawy,
"My son, my son, my dear son," Abu Yehia cried as the women of El-Amar tried in vain to comfort her. "No one knows what he meant to us," screamed Ahlam, one of Shabrawy's six sisters. "He meant the world to us."
Twelve people have been killed in election-related violence this year.
Egypt promised the fairest elections in memory after a high court order that judges must monitor every polling station.
In the last election in 1995, Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party won 97 percent of the seats amid widespread allegations of fraud and violence in which 87 people were killed and 1,500 injured.
Opposition candidates and observers have said that inside the polling stations where the judges are present, fraud has indeed declined and the rate of violence is lower. However, they say that in the streets, police backing the ruling party still regularly intimidate and harass supporters of opposition candidates.
Many of those who have complained about a lack of access to polls and police harassment were supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, whose candidates are running as independents.
The Brotherhood calls for turning Egypt into an Islamic state, but unlike more radical Islamic groups, has forsworn violence to achieve that end. Though its candidates have won only 16 seats so far, the Brotherhood has proven to be the ruling party's most tenacious opponent.
