Egypt poll chaos

Cairo - Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei warned of chaos in the troubled nation if parliamentary polls go ahead in April, as protesters demonstrated in Cairo against Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.

ElBaradei, a leading figure in the National Salvation Front coalition, said torture, abductions and a lack of social justice were still blighting Egyptian society.

To press ahead in those circumstances risked setting the country on a “road to total chaos and instability,” he added.

“We need to send a message loud and clear to the people here and outside of Egypt that this is not a democracy, that we have not participated in an uprising two years ago to end up with a recycling of the (Hosni) Mubarak regime.”

On Saturday he called for an election boycott in the nation, which has been deeply divided since a November decree that pushed through an Islamist-drafted constitution.

In Cairo on Sunday, protesters blocked the doors to the main administrative building as part of a growing campaign of civil disobedience around the country against Mursi.

Anger in the country has been fuelled not just by political divisons but by a crippling economic crisis.

In the northern city of Kafr el-Sheikh, hundreds of quarry workers stormed the governor's headquarters and forced employees out of the building in a protest against working conditions.

They chanted against governor Saad al-Husseini, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Bakeries across Egypt have threatened to go on strike on Thursday due to rising wheat prices, a potentially devastating move in a country where many rely on subsidised bread as the main food staple.

A general strike in the canal city of Port Said entered its second week on Sunday, with most shops and factories closed down. - Sapa-AFP.