Exit polls show Fatah win, Hamas finishes in close 2nd

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Amid tight security and a sea of green and yellow flags, Palestinians turned out in record numbers Wednesday for their first parliamentary election in a decade. Exit polls projected that the ruling Fatah Party would win the most seats, but showed that Islamic militants made a strong showing.\nVoter turnout in the historic balloting was 77.7 percent of 1.3 million eligible voters, according to the Central Election Commission. In the 1996 parliamentary election, turnout was about 75 percent.\nOne exit poll said the ruling Fatah Party captured 42 percent of the vote, and the Islamic militant group Hamas finished a strong second, with 35 percent. The poll was conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Public Opinion.\nAnother exit poll by Bir Zeit University showed Fatah with 46.4 percent of the vote, with Hamas winning 39.5 percent.\nThis would translate into 63 seats for Fatah and 58 for Hamas in the 132-seat Palestinian legislature, pollsters said. A total of 8,000 voters in 232 polling stations were surveyed for the exit poll, which had a one-seat margin of error.\nLong lines formed across the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians eagerly cast their ballots for the 132 parliament seats up for grabs.\nPolls closed at 7 p.m. (noon EST). Under a compromise with Israel, some Arabs in east Jerusalem were allowed to cast absentee ballots at post offices in the disputed city, and voting was extended there by two hours because postal workers were slow.\nAfter the polls closed, Fatah supporters across Gaza and the West Bank began honking car horns, shooting in the air and setting off fireworks in celebration.\nElection officials began counting the votes soon after polls closed and preliminary results are expected Thursday. Routine power cuts in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis forced election workers to count ballots by candlelight.\nPalestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he is ready to resume peace talks with Israel, even if Hamas joins his government after the vote.\n"We are ready to negotiate," Abbas told Israeli reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "We are partners with the Israelis. They don't have the right to choose their partner. But if they are seeking a Palestinian partner, this partner exists."\nEven if it doesn't win outright, Hamas is widely expected to make a strong showing that would place the Islamists -- responsible for dozens of suicide bombings against Israel -- squarely inside the Palestinian political system for the first time.\nHamas' success has alarmed Israel and the West, although Abbas has argued that bringing them into the system will tame them, enabling peace moves to go forward. In an apparent sign of pragmatism, Hamas has not carried out a suicide attack since a cease-fire was declared a year ago.\nBut its top parliamentary candidate, Ismail Haniyeh, said Hamas had no intention of laying down its arms after the elections as Abbas has said he expects. And another prominent candidate, Mahmoud Zahar, said his group is "not going to change a single word" in its covenant calling for Israel's destruction.\nThe Bush administration lists Hamas as a terrorist organization and also refuses to deal directly with it. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday refused to rule out negotiations with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas ministers.\nAbbas, elected a year ago, will still head the Palestinian Authority regardless of Wednesday's results, but the voting will usher in a new Cabinet that could include Hamas members. Israel says it will not deal with Hamas until it disarms.\nWhite House spokesman Scott McClellan called it "a historic and significant day for the Palestinian people."\nEmotions ran high in the disputed city of Jerusalem, where right-wing Israeli lawmakers and extremists tried to force their way into a Palestinian polling station, with 75 policemen blocking their way. And in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, police fired into the air to push back a crowd of impatient voters jostling their way into a polling station.\n-- Associated Press reporters Mariam Fam and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza and Ali Daraghmeh in Nablus contributed to this report.