Unoffical results: Hamas strong in local W. Bank elections

This is the first time the Islamic faction has competed in the polls.

Some 150,000 eligible voters choose among more than 800 candidates in the election. Sixteen percent of the 360 local council seats were reserved for women.

According to preliminary results obtained by the Associated Press, the ruling Fatah movement won a majority in 14 towns, while Hamas took control in nine communities. In two, a joint Hamas-Fatah slate won. The outcome of the vote in one community, Ya'bed, was not immediately available.

However, Hamas officials said they had won a majority in at least 17 local councils, based on reports from their election observers.

The discrepancy could not immediately be explained. However, on the local level, membership in a political faction is not always clear-cut, and some candidates could have been claimed by the rival groups.

A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the result was a reflection of strong support for the group among Palestinians.

Abu Zuhri suggested that Hamas was ready to forge coalitions with Fatah. "The coming stage is one of development and rebuilding our society, and we will cooperate with everyone to strengthen our society."

These elections are the preamble to broader local elections that will take place in the larger cities and municipal authorities in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Elections will be held next week in 10 towns in the Gaza Strip.

Some 250 observers were stationed at the polling stations to make sure the elections - the first local and municipal authorities elections in the Palestinian Authority held in decades - ran smoothly and legally, Israel Radio reported Friday.

Long lines formed outside the polling stations, which were open between 7 A.M. and 7 P.M. Initial reports from across the West Bank indicated a very high voting percentage that surpassed the 70-percent mark, according to Palestinian sources.

About 100 of 887 registered candidates withdrew their candidacy in the final 24 hours prior to the election. The withdrawals spurred a wave of rumors of political deals woven together on election eve.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, who cast his ballot in the East Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis, praised the vote in 26 West Bank municipalities as "the first step toward the establishment of the Palestinians state."

To keep order at polling places, Israel allowed Palestinian police armed with pistols into some towns and villages that have been off-limits to them under interim peace accords signed in the early 1990s.

The secretary general of the Central Elections Committee, Hussein al-A'arj, expressed hope that a large portion of the eligible Palestinian voters will exercise their right and bolster democracy in the Palestinian Authority.

Al-A'arj also said that Israel could help if it lifted the roadblocks that would enable voters to make their way with greater ease to the polls.

One of the most interesting features of these elections is the participation of women candidates among the 826 individuals who are bidding for a post on their local council.

According to the law of local elections in the Palestinian Authority, women are guaranteed 16 percent of the seats in their township. With the exception of the municipality of Uja, a small village north of Jericho, all the others have two or three seats reserved in the majlis (the council) for women.

However, the conditions do not appear to be as favorable as the law dictates. In one case, that of the village of Ya'bed near Jenin, six women originally registered as candidates changed their mind and withdrew their bids for seats in the local council.

The reason for their change of heart reportedly stemmed from pressure from their families, who considered the possibility that their female relatives would sit in the council alongside the men as offensive.

There is now only one candidate, Maysoun Badarne, 44, which according to the election law can be elected by just a single vote.

Her village has a population of 17,000, with 6,750 eligible voters.

During the election campaign, clans expressed their opposition to photographs of the female candidates being shown.

Badarne, a teacher in a girls elementary school, told Haaretz on Thursday that "there was serious pressure on the women to pull out of the race, and that is why they pulled out. Fifty-two percent of the villagers are women, and there is no reason why they will not be represented. They have pressured and continue to pressure me to pull out, but I have a task, and I cannot accept that there will be no women on the village majlis."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/518353.html