Final count shows Hamas winning 74 seats

A final count of votes from the Palestinian parliamentary election showed the Islamic group Hamas winning 74 seats and the Fatah Party getting 45, election officials said today.

The new figures gave Hamas two less seats and Fatah two more seats than a preliminary vote count released by the commission on Thursday showed.

Fatah’s new total gave it just over one-third of the seats in the parliament, allowing it to block any efforts by the Islamic group to change the Palestinian Basic Law, the quasi-constitutional framework that governs the structure of the Palestinian Authority.