ALEXANDRIA: Protesters set fire to cars, tires and two polling stations, clashing with police firing tear gas in riots that erupted around Egypt Monday over allegations of widespread fraud in Sunday's parliamentary polls. The country's most powerful opposition movement, Muslim Brotherhood, acknowledged that its lawmakers may be all but completely swept out of parliament by what it and other called rampant rigging. That's a significant blow to the group, which held 88 seats – a fifth – of the outgoing parliament. The election showed the Brotherhood's limited options after repeated crackdowns in past years – including the arrest of some 1,400 of its activists in the weeks ahead of the vote. Brotherhood figures admitted they could do little to stop vote rigging, fearing that protests could make their movement appear violent and bring a harsher crackdown amid uncertain political times. “We want to show the world that we are not thugs, we will not resort to violence,” said Sobhi Saleh, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria. A coalition of local and international rights groups also reported that the balloting was marred by widespread rigging. But, the High Election Commission dismissed reports of violence or irregularities during the voting, saying that the few incidents it uncovered “did not undermine the electoral process as a whole.” Though official results are not due until Tuesday, candidate supporters around the country took to the streets in anger after hearing word their favorites lost. In Assiut, police fired tear gas at an opposition procession. In Luxor, protesters set fire to cars and clashed with security forces. Other protests erupted in the northern Delta region.
