OnIslam.net

CAIRO – Preliminary results of Egypt’s first elections since the downfall of strongman Hosni Mubarak have shown the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, which is expected to dominate the country’s political landscape.

"I expect the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party will do better than any other single party," forecast author and Egypt expert Bruce Rutherford, a professor at the US-based Colgate University, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, November 30.

"But I don’t expect it will be the dominant force that some fear."

The state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper and the independent daily Al-Shorouk both gave the lead to the Freedom and Justice Party based on preliminary figures.

"The first signs show the Freedom and Justice Party with 47 percent of the votes, and 22 percent for the Egyptian bloc," a coalition of secular parties, AFP cited the papers.

The information was confirmed to Reuters by a source close to the Brotherhood's party, who said early indications showed it was ahead in the races for seats allocated both by party list and to individuals.

In the party list race it was followed by the Salafi al-Nour Party and the liberal Egyptian Bloc, it said in a statement.

Two thirds of seats will be allocated by party list and one third to individuals.

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.

About 17 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the first two-day phase of three rounds of polling for the lower house, which will be completed on January 11.

The results will be published later on Wednesday covering the nine governorates that voted in the first stage.

The results are patiently awaited as reflecting the trends likely to shape a country that has not had a free election in 60 years.

Success

Brotherhood leaders believe that their party would dominate nearly third seats of the new parliament.

"The Brotherhood party hopes to win 30 percent of parliament," Mohamed El-Beltagy told Reuters.

FJP leaders say that Egypt's new parliament should form the government.

"A government that is not based on a parliamentary majority cannot conduct its work in practice," FJP head Mohamed Mursi told reporters during a tour of polling stations in the working-class district of Shubra in Cairo.

"Therefore we see that it is natural that the parliamentary majority in the coming parliament will be the one that forms the government," said Mursi.

"We see that it is better for it to be a coalition government built on a majority coalition in the parliament."

The Brotherhood was the only party that seriously challenged Mubarak's National Democratic Party at the polls, mobilizing a dedicated support base that would brave beatings and tear gas to vote.

Established in 1928 in Egypt, the Brotherhood has an overwhelmingly lay leadership of professionals with modern educations -- engineers, doctors, lawyers, academics and teachers.

The core membership is middle-class or lower middle-class.

A stricter Salafi al-Nour Party, which hopes to siphon votes from the Muslim Brotherhood, said organizational failings meant his party had underperformed.

The party leaders said they are expected to win up to half of second city Alexandria's 24 seats in parliament and, nationwide, 70 to 75 of the assembly's 498 elected seats.