CAIRO: At least seven people were killed Sunday as security forces tried to clear protesters from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, casting a dark shadow over Egypt’s first elections since Hosni Mubarak’s downfall.

Police and military forces burned tents and used batons, tear gas and birdshot to clear the central square of thousands of protesters who are demanding that the ruling military cede power to a civilian authority.

It was the second day of violence in the Egyptian capital, following a peaceful anti-military mass rally Friday.

Seven people died Sunday and two people Saturday, medical sources said, kicking off a violent countdown to the country’s first elections since the end of Mubarak’s 30-year-rule.

“A man in his 20s died after being shot in the stomach,” Dr. Ahmad al-Sayyed, working in a field hospital in Tahrir, told AFP.

Earlier, Dr. Abdullah Abdul-Rahman said that “three people died of asphyxiation during the clashes.”

Medical sources confirmed at least seven deaths, three from asphyxiation.

Police and troops seized the square only to be beaten back by protesters who triumphantly retook it later, as also happened Saturday.

The situation remained fluid with ongoing clashes around Tahrir – the symbolic heart of protests that toppled Mubarak in February.

Activists tweeted a video they said showed police dragging a corpse on the ground, in what appears to be Tahrir Square, and leaving it by a rubbish dump.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, a funeral procession for one of the victims degenerated into clashes with the police, who fired volleys of tear gas at mourners, the official MENA news agency reported.

In the canal city of Suez, troops fired live bullets into the air to stop protesters from storming a police station in the city center.

Protests also broke out in the central cities of Qena and Assiut, a security official said, adding that 55 people had been arrested nationwide.

Egypt’s Cabinet, which held crisis talks for several hours before moving en masse to the headquarters of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for another meeting, said in a statement that parliamentary elections scheduled for Nov. 28 would proceed on schedule.

Throughout the day, sporadic clashes erupted near the Interior Ministry on the outskirts of Tahrir Square, which was covered by clouds of tear gas and littered with stones and glass. In makeshift hospitals set up in mosques around the square, demonstrators received treatment for tear gas inhalation and injuries from rubber bullets and birdshot.

Protesters have been chanting against the SCAF and demanding the ouster of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak’s long-time defence minister who heads it.

Mohsen al-Fangari, a member of the council, insisted the election would go ahead as planned and that the authorities were able to guarantee security.

“We will not give in to calls to delay the elections. The armed forces and the Interior Ministry are able to secure the polling stations,” Fangari told a talk show on the Egyptian satellite channel Al-Hayat.

Several prominent political figures and intellectuals, including former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohammad al-Baradei, earlier issued a call for a delay to the legislative polls.

They submitted a new transition road map which would see an elected constituent assembly draft a constitution and then a presidential election would be held, followed by parliamentary polls.

The recent street protests saw the return of anti-riot police, the branch of the Interior Ministry most used by the Mubarak regime in its crackdown against protesters but rarely deployed since.

Friday’s rally, which grouped Islamist and secular activists, called on the military to hand power to a civilian government and demanded more control over the constitution the new parliament is to draft.

Protesters called for the withdrawal of a government document that proposes supra constitutional principles, which could see the military maintain control over the country’s affairs and keep its budget from public scrutiny. The military says it will hand over power after a presidential election, which has yet to be scheduled.

Friday’s demonstration passed without incident, but when demonstrators returned to the square Saturday, they were met with violence by security forces.

Medics announced Saturday the deaths of Ahmad Mahmoud, 23, who sustained a bullet wound to the chest in Cairo, and Baha Eddin Mohammad Hussein, 25, hit by a rubber bullet in Alexandria as protests spread.

In Rome, Italy’s new Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle called for an end to the violence in Egypt. – AFP, with AP and Reuters