Cairo ? A surprise showing in the first round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections has given the Muslim Brotherhood its strongest political foothold ever heading into today’s vote, hinting at what democracy might look like in the Arab world’s largest country.

Secularists and Christians were unsettled by the Brotherhood’s showing, with the country’s oldest Islamic fundamentalist group taking 34 seats, doubling its presence in parliament.

The victories have established the Brotherhood as the leader of the opposition and have proved what the government feared: that the banned group is popular among Egyptians despite, or because of, frequent crackdowns.