Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed deep concern on Saturday after early results in Egypt's post-revolution election showed Islamists sweeping to victory.

"The process of Islamization in Arab countries is very worrying," Barak told Israel's private Channel Two television.

The Muslim Brotherhood, expected to win 40 percent of votes in the first phase of Egypt's post-revolution election, stressed Saturday it was a moderate force, not to be confused with hardliners.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is set to emerge as the dominant force in the country's lower house of parliament for which voting began in a third of Egypt's districts on Monday and Tuesday.

Egypt's future finance minister said on Saturday it was too soon to say whether the country would take a loan of $3.2 billion offered by the International Monetary Fund to fund its budget deficit.

"It is too soon to know the outcome for this agreement with the IMF for a loan of $3.2 billion dollars, (for) the budget deficit estimated at 134 billion Egyptian pounds ($22 billion)," Mumtaz Said said in a statement.

A French minister said there was no such thing as moderate Islam, calling recent election successes by Islamic parties in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia "worrying" in an interview published Saturday.

Jeannette Bougrab, a junior minister with responsibility for youth, told Le Parisien newspaper that legislation based on Islamic sharia law "inevitably" imposed restrictions on rights and freedoms.

Egypt said on Friday the country's first post-revolution election had seen a record turnout but it again delayed the release of full results expected to show Islamist candidates sweep to victory.

At a press conference by the election commission chief Abdul Moez Ibrahim, already pushed back by two days, he began announcing figures before abruptly leaving the room saying he had "no more energy" and had "run out of gas."

Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday claimed the lead in phase one of the country's first parliamentary elections since veteran president Hosni Mubarak's fall.

The movement's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) said initial results showed its coalition ahead, followed by parties belonging to hardline Islamist Salafi movements, then a coalition of secular movements in third.

Egypt's bourse on Tuesday spiked more than 5.0 percent in a buying spree sparked by the orderly start to voting in the country's first post-revolution election, leading to the suspension of trading.

The main EGX-30 index rose 5.08 percent or 191.93 points to touch 3,972.06, after weeks of political upheaval and deadly clashes between police and protesters that caused huge falls in the value of the local stock market.

Egyptian polling stations opened for a second day on Tuesday after a mostly smooth start and large turnout in the first election since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

Up to 40 million voters are being asked to choose a new parliament, in a three stage process that will end in January.

Post-revolution Egypt headed to the polls Monday for a chaotic election clouded by violence and a political crisis, the start of a long process to bring democracy to the Arab world's most populous nation.

Ten months after the end of 30 years of autocratic rule by Hosni Mubarak, ousted by popular protests in one of the seminal events of the Arab Spring, up to 40 million voters are being asked to choose a new parliament.

Egypt's military ruler warned on Sunday of "extremely grave" consequences if the turbulent nation does not pull through its current crisis.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, in comments carried by the nation's official news agency, also urged voters to turn out for the parliamentary elections starting on Monday.