Early Egypt Results Put Islamist in Lead

CAIRO—The Muslim Brotherhood's candidate appears poised to advance to the second round of Egypt's historic presidential elections, according to exit polls conducted by his campaign and those of rivals—a surprise showing that is likely to set up a dramatic runoff featuring at least one Islamist candidate.

Official results of the first round of Egypt's presidential election, which closed Thursday night after two days of voting, won't be released until next week. Competing campaigns are expected to release tallies compiled by their own election monitors Friday.

In the meantime, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi was emerging as a front-runner: The Islamist candidate appeared to be a lock for a top-two finish, according to separate exit polling cited by officials from the campaigns of former Air Force Commander Ahmed Shafiq and former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, as well as from the Brotherhood political organization itself.

Early unofficial returns were also leaking from individual polling stations. The Brotherhood released a selection of those returns, which it said represented about 2% of polling stations and showed Mr. Morsi with a healthy lead. None of the early results or exit polls could be independently confirmed. (...)