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 CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood worked to stretch its lead Tuesday as Egyptians returned to the polls in the final phase of the first parliamentary elections since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak and prosecutors asked a court to deliver “the harshest penalty” against him. Islamist groups are expected to consolidate the gains they made in earlier rounds, in which the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party took the lead ahead of the more conservative Nour party, which represents Salafi Muslims. “Nothing is impossible but it would be very difficult,” he said. With the same anniversary looming over Mr. Mubarak’s trial, prosecutors began to lay out their case that he was culpable for the hundreds of people killed by security forces during the 18 days of protests that ended his rule. “He deserves an end of humiliation and indignity — from the presidential palace to the defendants’ cage and then the harshest penalty,” the prosecutor, Mustafa Suleiman, told the court, according to a report from a journalist from The Associated Press inside the courtroom. Witnesses said he spoke with his back turned to Mr. Mubarak and his two sons, Alaa and Gamal, who were corralled in the metal cage that is the standard docket in Egyptian criminal courts. In laying out his case that Mr. Mubarak was responsible for the deaths of demonstrators, the prosecutor also focused attention on Gamal Mubarak, who had become an important powerbroker in the ruling party and his father’s heir apparent before the revolution. “Here we have a president who devoted the last decade of his rule to engineer something that no one in Egypt ever dared to do before — the succession of his son,” said the prosecutor declared, according to a report from The A.P.
– The final round of voting began in Egypt today, and it looks like the Muslim Brotherhood could walk off with a controlling majority of seats in Parliament's lower house. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, the country's mainstream Islamist party, had already won a high percentage of the seats awarded in the first and second rounds of voting. Two of the nine provinces voting today are Brotherhood strongholds, where some of the party's most well-known candidates are running, the New York Times reports. A plurality, not a majority, was originally predicted for the Freedom and Justice Party. A majority would allow the party to govern alone, but the Brotherhood has repeatedly said it plans to form a coalition government, and has aligned itself with more liberal parties rather than the ultraconservative Salafis, who are in second place with up to 25% of the seats so far. Also today, prosecutors began presenting their case against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Bloomberg notes. His trial resumed last week after a two-month break; state TV today showed Mubarak being carried to and from the courtroom on a gurney. "He deserves an end of humiliation and indignity," said the chief prosecutor, according to the AP.