Egypt Delays Poll Results Set to Show Islamist Surge

It’s not ‘official’ yet, but it may as well be.  The Muslim Brotherhood (from which Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri began as activists) is set to win about 40% of the votes, and the more radical Salafi Islamists (similar in ideology to al-Qaeda) will be receiving about 20%.  Together, the Islamists will have a significant majority.  Welcome to Egypt’s new era of freedom …

By Jailan Zayan – “Egypt announced a second delay Thursday for results of its first election vote since its February revolution which are set to reveal hardline Salafi Islamists as important new powerbrokers.

Millions of Egyptians embraced their new democratic freedoms in the capital Cairo and second-city Alexandria earlier this week in an orderly and peaceful first phase of multi-stage parliamentary elections.

Egypt’s election commission chief Abdel Moez Ibrahim said a large turnout — forecast as high as 70 percent — meant the publication of results had to be pushed back another day to Friday.

‘The counting of votes is still going on in a number of districts because of the large number of voters who took part in these elections,’ he was quoted as saying by the official MENA news agency.

The results are expected to show the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Islamist movement banned for decades by Mubarak, as the dominant force after it said its party had taken at least 40 percent of the vote in preliminary counting.

The battle for second place had been seen as between secular liberals and hardline Islamists who follow the strict Salafi brand of Islam, but local media indicated the latter were poised to prevail with more than 20 percent.

‘Al-Nur, the surprise of the moment,’ headlined the independent Al-Shorouq daily on Thursday, referring to the main party of the Salafists, whose members follow a strict form of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia.” Read more.