With counting under way and exit polls in the Palestinian elections indicating Hamas has come a close second to Fatah, the resistance movement is looking at how it could join the government.

Shortly after voting ended on Wednesday, a Fatah official estimated that Fatah had won 46% of the vote, beating an estimated vote of more than 30% for Hamas.

Ismail Haniyah, a senior Hamas leader, said determining the group's future role would now be a priority.

"This issue is of great importance for Hamas and for most of the Palestinian people because the government will supervise the administration of Palestinian political and internal affairs," he said.

Haniyah said the United States had no right to interfere in Palestinian affairs by putting pressure on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, not to include Hamas in a new cabinet.

"The issue of the government is an internal Palestinian affair and no external party has the right to intervene with it," Haniyah said.

Pressure

Israel and the US have rejected dialogue with Hamas, a group which has carried out nearly 60 bombings since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000 against the Israeli occupation. Its charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

In recent days, Hamas has raised the possibility of indirect negotiations with Israel, and it omitted from its election manifesto its long-standing call to destroy Israel.

But Haniyah rejected international pressure to disarm after the election, saying Hamas will keep its weapons until Israel leaves Palestinian territory.

Hamas has gained popularity among Palestinians not only for its armed resistance to the Israeli occupation but for its charity network and corruption-free image.

Results

A spokesman for the Central Elections Committee told a news conference in Ram Allah on Wednesday night that semi-official results of the polls would be released within 24 hours or 48 hours at most.

Earlier, pollsters had cautioned that there could be a large margin of error in their projections. One poll, prepared by Khalil Shikaki, head of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research in Ram Allah, showed Fatah and Hamas would win 58 and 53 seats respectively out of the 132 contested seats.

Another by the Bir Zeit University gave Fatah 63 seats and Hamas 58.

Victory statements

However, both parties were confident of victory.

Muhammad Shataya, one of the leaders of the Fatah campaign team who is also a cabinet minister, said: "We think that Fatah has comfortably won the elections. We are sure that Fatah has won the elections with a percentage [of seats in parliament] which would allow us to form the next government."

Nayef Rajoub, a Hamas leader and candidate in the Hebron region, told Aljazeera.net he was confident Hamas would win more than 50% of the seats.

"We might get as many as 70 seats, a comfortable majority in the next parliament," he said.

Rajoub emerged the first winner in the Hebron region, the largest electoral district in the West Bank, where Hamas reportedly won all the nine contest seats at the district level.

Jamil Saada, head of Hamas's election campaign in the West Bank, said: "We have had a bad experience with these opinion polls. We don't really give them much credibility. I hope that others will not be surprised by the enormity of Hamas's victory."

The Bir Zeit University poll also gave a total of seven seats go the left-wing parties, including three to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), two to the Independent Palestine list, headed by Mustafa al-Barghuthi, and two to the Badil list, made up of a coalition of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestine People's Party (PPP) and Fida, formerly headed by ex-information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.

Fatah supporters took to the streets in several Palestinian towns and villages to celebrate victory. The celebrants honked their horns, shouted Fatah slogans and in many cases fired in the air.

Jerusalem

Voting had continued for a further two hours in occupied East Jerusalem after election organisers said the Israeli authorities had prevented some voters from casting their ballot on time.

Hamas maintained that the extension was specifically aimed at allowing Fatah supporters to vote, a charge disputed by Ammar Dweik, head of the Palestinian Central Elections Committee, who described the polls as "a feast of democracy", fair, free and transparent.

PHOTO CAPTION

Supporters of Hamas in the West Bank town of Hebron Wednesday Jan. 25, 2006. (AP)