Tempers flared as voters were again prevented from reaching polling stations in several constituencies and police pressed a wave of arrests of Islamists in the nine provinces taking part.
Police have detained more than 500 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood over the past three days, most of them local campaign managers or volunteers tasked with mobilizing voters.
"The police are arresting them in their houses, in mosques, in the street and confiscating computer hard drives," Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh, a senior Brotherhood leader, said.
The group said that more arrests were made on Thursday and added that an additional 300 supporters were still behind bars following similar raids carried out during the first two phases of polling.
The officially banned movement's long underground experience proved useful, as hundreds of others managed to slip through the net and continue preparations for the third phase.
But an AFP reporter near the Delta town of Mansoura said that police was barring access to polling stations, sparking protests by Muslim Brotherhood supporters, in a repeat of scenes from the second phase.
The same situation was reported in Adwa, a village near the city of Zagazig where the head of the Brotherhood's parliamentary group, Mohammed Morsi, was contesting a seat.
"They don't want anybody to vote for the Brothers," 36-year-old Omar Mohammed Ahmed Said, as a crowd of angry would-be voters started building up in front of a school sealed off by some 150 police equipped with tear gas canisters.
A camera crew from the Arabic news network Al Jazeera filming a polling station blocked off by police was detained on Thursday in Kafr Sheikh, the channel announced, adding that its videotapes were destroyed by security personnel.
In last week's second phase Muslim Brotherhood supporters and other voters were confronted at polling stations by phalanxes of riot police and thugs armed with machetes.
But Brotherhood spokesman Issam Al Aryan predicted that the security crackdown would backfire.
"The Brotherhood will only benefit more from the protest vote," he said.
Voting was taking place on Thursday in several remote regions of Egypt such as the Sinai Peninsula and Upper Egypt but most of the attention focused on Islamist strongholds in the Nile Delta.
Campaigning under the slogan "Islam is the solution", the movement founded in 1922 made major gains in the first two phases of the election, winning 76 seats, five times their tally in the outgoing parliament.
With a success rate hovering around 70 percent, the Brotherhood could reasonably hope to reach the symbolic 100 mark as it was fielding a total of 49 candidates in the 68 constituencies taking part in Thursday's voting.
Although its dominance of the People's Assembly was not at risk, President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party will nevertheless have to secure close to 100 more seats in order to retain the two-thirds majority required to change the constitution and pass emergency laws.
The violations reported by opposition parties, journalists and independent monitors in last week's second phase runoffs prompted expressions of concern from the regime's US ally.
"The Egyptian government has a responsibility to provide an atmosphere for its people in which they can feel as though they are not encumbered, they are not barred from or under the threat of violence or coercion," the State Department said on Wednesday.
The run-up to the third phase was also marked by new efforts by the country's respected judges' syndicate to gain more independence from the state in monitoring the conduct of the vote.
After damning reports by some syndicate members on the violations committed in the first and second phases, the judges announced that they would also deploy in the streets in a bid to ensure voter access to polling stations.
They also secured the electoral commission's agreement to changes in the conduct of the count.
Any runoffs will be held next Wednesday. Re-runs are also due to be held at a date yet to be determined in three constituencies where irregularities were found in the elections' second phase.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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