RAMALLAH: Voters cast ballots on Saturday for municipal councils in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in a rare democratic exercise following a decade and a half of delays to Palestinian elections. It was the second phase of municipal polls after a first round of voting in December in 154 West Bank villages.
Saturday’s vote was held in 50 towns and cities, with many elections uncontested, or without any candidates in some cases.
Turnout was 52.8 per cent, according to the Central Elections Commission. Wasfi Ramhi, voting in the city of Al Bireh, said he hoped it would lead to national elections.
“If they are democratic, fair and free, they will help us to hold legislative and presidential elections,” he said. As he cast his vote in Al Bireh, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas defended his decision to call off scheduled presidential and legislative elections last year, saying they had to be held in “all the Palestinian territories”.
Israel had barred voting from taking place in annexed east Jerusalem. The activists had been poised to sweep the parliamentary election, which was widely seen as the real reason for Abbas’s 11th-hour postponement of the poll.
No legislative or presidential elections have been held in the Palestinian territories for 15 years, following repeated delays.
The last municipal elections, held in 2017, were boycotted by Hamas, the rulers of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is also boycotting this year’s election in protest at the indefinite postponement of parliamentary and presidential elections.
Central Elections Commission chief Hanna Nasser said a number of candidates had been arrested in the lead-up to the vote.
“There are candidates who were arrested before today,” Nasser said. “This indicates blatant interference in the election process.
“The arrests were made for political reasons to prevent certain candidates from running in the elections,” he told a news conference. No elections are being held in Gaza or in east Jerusalem.
In the Jordan Valley city of Jericho, independents dominated the candidate lists, with established parties officially staying away, a dynamic mirrored across the West Bank.
“Usually there are just one or two lists running — and they belong to the parties. This time there are five lists, many of them independents,” said Emad Barahmeh, a businessman who heads one of the independent lists running in Jericho. Yet analysts say Hamas and Fatah, the secular party led by Abbas, are still involved, fielding candidates as independents. “It is also noticeable that the various Palestinian factions are clearly absent from running for these elections, but their candidates have entered under the name of independents,” Palestinian elections specialist Talab Awad said. – AFP