GAZA CITY: The Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers on Saturday welcomed early indications of election success for Islamist parties in neighboring Egypt.
"It is a very good result … it will mean more and more support for Palestinian issues," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP. "The relationship of the next regime in Egypt with the Palestinians will be very good."
Partial results emerging on Saturday for areas of Egypt that voted in record numbers showed that in Port Said, the moderate Islamist alliance led by the previously banned Muslim Brotherhood triumphed with 32.5 percent of votes for parties, while the hardline Salafist Al-Nour party won 20.7 percent.
In the southern Red Sea district, the Brotherhood’s alliance reached 30 percent, while secular coalition the Egyptian Bloc came in second with 15 percent.
Barhum said the Egyptian poll results and Islamic gains in Tunisia, like Hamas’s own landslide win in 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, served notice to the West that its attempts to politically marginalize Islam were failing.
"We’re asking the United States and Europe to respect the Egyptian people’s democracy," he said.
