Egypt’s two largest Islamic extremist parties claim they won nearly 70 percent of the votes in the second round of legislative elections. The Islamic parties won approximately 65 of the votes in the first round of elections last month.,
The complex elections call on eligible Egyptians to vote for party lists that will make up two-thirds of the parliament, while individual candidates run for the other third.
The Muslim Brotherhood, running under the euphemistic name Freedom and Justice, said it won 39 percent of the votes in the contest between parties. The Salafist Islam party, named Al-Nur, said it won more than 39 percent of the ballots.
There were no declared winners in the vote for individual candidates, who face a run-off on Wednesday.
The Muslim Brotherhood formerly was ordered off-limits to American officials before the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year. Realizing that anti-American and anti-Israel party would likely be the dominant force in Egypt, the Obama administration decided to “engage” the Muslim Brotherhood, and the president even spoke optimistically about it.
However, the strong showing by the Salafists is another in a long line of “surprises” to the American government, which promoted Palestinian Authority legislative elections five years ago and ended up with the Hamas terrorist organization as the ruling party. Hamas was created by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Iran is thrilled with election results.
Mahmoud Ghazlan, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, told Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, "Cairo will never allow a continuation of the Gaza blockade,” referring to Israel’s maritime embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza to prevent more terrorists and weapons from reaching Gaza.
“Ghazlan blasted the former Egyptian regime's silence over Israel's crimes against the innocent people of the Gaza Strip, and said the new regime in Cairo will certainly pick up a new approach towards Palestine and the Palestinian issue,” the Iranian news agency reported.