RAMALLAH, West Bank — The radical Hamas movement appeared poised Wednesday to claim more than a third of the seats in the Palestinian parliament, and may even have won a majority.
On Wednesday, the Development Studies Program of Birzeit University projected a Fatah victory, with 46.4% of the vote, in its poll. Hamas appeared to garner 39.5%, according to the poll. Two other polls indicated similar results.
Early this morning, however, some officials in both parties said Hamas appeared to have won. Preliminary results will not be available at least until later today. Kadoura Fares, a senior Fatah official and parliamentary candidate, said that he believed that Hamas had won a majority. He declined to specify how he had reached that conclusion.
If the exit poll margin holds, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party will claim 63 of 132 legislative seats, and Hamas will take 58, the pollsters said. The remaining seats are likely to be scattered among a handful of leftist and independent parties that could play kingmaker roles in shaping the next government.
The showing by Hamas will change the face of Palestinian politics by giving the Islamic movement a formal place in the governmental structure for the first time since the Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994.
A government that includes Hamas, which has been responsible for numerous suicide bombings and attacks against Israelis, will present problems for negotiations with Israel, which has demanded that the party renounce violence and its vow to destroy the Jewish state.
The four partners in Mideast negotiations -- the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia -- issued a statement in December saying any Palestinian Cabinet "should include no member who is not committed to the principles of Israel's right to exist in peace and security and an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Wednesday said that policy still applied.
President Bush, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal before polls closed Wednesday, painted the U.S. stance in stark terms. "Not until you renounce your desire to destroy Israel will we deal with you," he told the newspaper.
Amid tight security, balloting was for the most part orderly and turnout high, officials said. About 78% of the nearly 1.4 million eligible voters took part, election officials said.
