Party agents flooded the streets with banners and verses from the Koran as the third phase of Egypt's parliamentary election began today, with Islamists trying to dominate an assembly that will rival the clout of the ruling generals.
The army faced anger over its handling of protests that left 17 people dead in Cairo last month and an economic crisis has made it harder to meet the aspirations of citizens yearning for a better life since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
The military says the parliamentary vote will not be derailed by the eruptions of violence.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) led after the first two rounds.
The concluding vote to parliament's lower house takes in regions of the rural south, which has the largest proportions of Christian voters, the Nile Delta region north of the capital Cairo, and the restive Sinai desert region to the east.
Turnout has been far higher and the election atmosphere less tense than in Mubarak's day.
In Mahalla and the wealthier city of Mansoura, queues at polling stations were shorter than in previous rounds but voting appeared orderly.
Streets were dotted with the posters of parties, especially the Brotherhood and hardline Islamist al-Nour party, promising an end to corruption.
Monitors praised the first two rounds as relatively free of irregularities, while noting that many parties had defied a ban on campaigning outside polling stations in election day.
But police raids on pro-democracy and rights groups last week have disrupted the work of leading Western-backed election monitors and drawn accusations that the army was deliberately trying to weaken oversight of the vote and silence opponents.
The government said the raids were part of an investigation into illegal foreign funding of political parties and not aimed at weakening rights groups, which have been among the fiercest critics of the army's rule.
The United States called on Egyptian authorities to halt "harassment" of the groups involved. Egypt's government said some of the groups had no permits to operate in the country.
Fourteen million eligible voters in nine regions were choosing who occupies 150 of the seats in parliament. The staggered lower-house election concludes with a run-off vote on 10 and 11 January, with final results expected on 13 January.
