Islamists claim lead in Egypt vote count

CAIRO: Egypt's Islamists claimed Wednesday they were headed for victory in the opening phase of the country's first post-revolution election after two days of peaceful polling that won international plaudits.

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate group persecuted and banned during the 30-year rule of president Hosni Mubarak, said they were leading in preliminary results.


"From the start of the voting process until now (around 0930 GMT), preliminary results show the Freedom and Justice party list ahead," an FJP statement said, without giving figures.


In a surprise trend that will alarm secular liberals and the country's minority Christian community, the FJP also claimed that the Al-Nur movement, whose members are hardline Islamists who follow the strict Salafi brand of Islam, was in second place.


On Monday and Tuesday, millions of Egyptians embraced their new democratic freedoms, filing into polling stations in the capital Cairo and second-city Alexandria for the first phase of multi-stage parliamentary elections.


The results to be published on Wednesday only cover those areas that voted -- a third of constituencies -- but they will show the trends likely to shape a country that has not had a free election in 60 years.


The Muslim Brotherhood, a group at pains to stress its religious tolerance during campaigning, earned respect and recognition among many Egyptians for its opposition to Mubarak and its extensive charitable work.


Many of the new political parties which have emerged in the post-Mubarak era are unknown to voters and the secular pro-democracy movements that helped overthrow the dictator is divided and disorganised.


"The real surprise is not if the Muslim Brotherhood wins, the real surprise is if it does not win," wrote commentator Tariq al-Hamid in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat earlier in the week.