adminpost-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.
The FJP also claimed that the Al-Nur movement, a hardline group whose members follow the strict Salafi brand of Islam, was in second place – a trend that if confirmed will alarm secular liberals and the minority Christian community.
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. Publication of the results for the areas that voted this week – only a third of constituencies – was pushed back from
Wednesday evening until Thursday, state television reported without giving reasons. While the figures are only for the first round of a parliamentary election that will end in March, they will show the political trends likely to shape a country that has not had a free vote 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 movement that helped overthrow the dictator is divided and disorganised. – AFP.
Online Reporter