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Palestinian Elections: Forcing the West to awake to the voices of the people

Eóin Murray Gaza City 26 January 2006


The cliche of the day was that Wednesday the 25th of January, the second elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was a festival of democracy. The Gaza Strip is a dusty stretch of land. But as the day passed and the night wore on we were surprised by the strength of the Hamas showing. Certainly anyone who has ever been to the Gaza Strip and witnessed Israeli human rights violations and the chaos on the streets because of the collapse of law and order is not shocked at a good showing by Hamas. Even more so after yesterday’s elections - now the world awaits the dusty political landscape to settle. Eoin Murray reports, Live from Occupied Palestine, in the Gaza Strip. 

Photostory: Palestinian Elections

25 January 2006


Polls have closed across Gaza and the occupied West Bank and the vote count has begun, after the first Palestinian parliamentary elections in a decade. Election officials say over 70 percent of the more than one million eligible voters turned out despite rain and cold winds to cast their ballots at more than 1,000 polling stations. East Jerusalem witnessed the highest turnout, between 80 to 90 percent, prompting the Central Elections Committee to extend voting until 9 p.m. An 81 percent turnout was registered in the Gaza Strip in comparison to 74 percent in the West Bank. A strong Hamas showing would indicate the movement’s call for change and reform clearly resonated with many voters, who were disappointed with the long-time rule of Fatah. 

Vanunu will appear in court for talking to press

23 January 2006


The International Federation of Journalists has called for an end to official harassment of Mordechai Vanunu - the man who told the world that Israel possessed nuclear weapons - as Israeli judges moved to send him back to jail for speaking to journalists. Vanunu will appear in court tomorrow, charged with violating restrictions that prevent him leaving the country and ban him from speaking to foreigners. If found guilty, he could be jailed for nine months on a total of 21 criminal counts. “This man has served his time for revealing what everyone has known for many years,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “Now he is being harassed simply for talking to journalists.” 

Polls close in Palestinian elections

25 January 2006


Preliminary results of the monitoring process indicate that the elections were held in an organized and quiet manner throughout the Gaza Strip, reflecting high levels of organization and professionalism by the Central Elections Committee (CEC). Voting was transparent, as it was conducted in the presence of candidate and party representatives, local and international monitors, and local and international media. Throughout the day, the CEC cooperated completely with monitoring bodies, and dealt seriously with all comments presented by monitors. Closure minutes were prepared in the presence of candidate and party representatives and monitors. Then, the vote count started. 

Palestinian Elections: Imposing a sense of normalcy on a highly abnormal situation

Rifat Odeh Kassis 25 January 2006


Elections are a normal practice in any democratic and free society. People go voluntarily to the voting polls to freely choose their political representatives. This democratic practice should be conducted in an open, transparent, regular and systematic manner. Unfortunately, most nations in the Middle East have not yet had the chance to enjoy this right on a regular basis. Ironically, the only countries in the region that do practice this right, with a reasonable degree of transparency, are Israel, Iran, occupied Iraq and occupied Palestine. 

Palestinians' time of choice

Eóin Murray Gaza City 24 January 2006


A year on and the groaning burden of the Israeli occupation remains in place – a constant feature of the political and geographical landscape. The impact of Israel’s occupation on the election for the 132-member Palestinian Legislative Council on 25 January 2006 remains unclear but certain key factors have to be taken into consideration. The pressures of occupation and poverty are undiminished, but the Palestine election is an opportunity for activists to promote a vision of change, finds Eóin Murray. 

Photostory: Palestinian Elections Campaign

24 January 2006


Sixteen constituencies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will choose 132 members of the Palestinian parliament, known as the Palestinian Legislative Council or PLC, which will sit for four years - though it has been 10 years since the last parliamentary election. Only Palestinians resident in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem can vote. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are not eligible to vote, nor are the estimated 6 million Palestinians and their descendants who live as refugees in other countries. The vast majority of the 100,000 eligible voters living in East Jerusalem are not allowed to vote in their own city. Dozens of individuals and parties will contest the election. However the two biggest groups will be Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement and the Islamic movement Hamas. 

Gunmen kill Fatah activist

24 January 2006


In the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, 24 January 2006, unidentified gunmen opened fire at Ahmad Yousef Abdel Jabbar Hassuna, 36, of Nablus, and killed him. PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that, on Monday evening (23 January 2006), a group of gunmen carrying automatic rifles came to the victim’s house in Rafedeya neighborhood. They asked him to remove from his house’s wall a picture of PLC candidate Ghassan El-Shak’a; but he refused to comply with their demand. The gunmen left. At approximately 02:00 on Tuesday, ten unidentified gunmen came to the house and attempted to remove the picture. Their voices woke up Hassouna, who came out of his house carrying a pistol. The gunmen immediately opened fire at him, hitting him with a bullet in the head. 

Palestinian Elections: Third day voting of the security forces

23 January 2006


On Monday evening, 23 January 2006, early voting of Palestinian security forces for the Palestinian legislative commenced have been completed. Voting of security forces started on Saturday morning, 21 January 2006, and has continued for 3 days, in accordance to amendments to article 73 of the Elections Law No. 9 of 2005, which allow security forces to vote on the three days that precede the official date of election. According to the Central Election Commission, by 15:00, 53227 security personnel (90%) had voted. The number of security personnel who have the right to vote in polling centers throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is 58705, including 36091 in the Gaza Strip. 

Palestinian refugees will hold mock PLO elections in Brussels and Paris

24 January 2006


Symbolic elections to the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the PLO’s exile parliament, will be held by Palestinian communities in Paris and Brussels on 25 January parallel to the Palestinian Authority’s second round of elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in the Israeli occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip (OPT). The symbolic elections aim to raise public awareness of the exclusion of over half of the Palestinian people from the internationally-sponsored process of Palestinian political decision making applied under the terms of the Madrid-Oslo agreements between Israel and the PLO.