Fatah party polls well in local elections

An election official said, with 60% of the ballots counted in the two territories, Fatah candidates won 60% of the votes. A Hamas official retorted that it was too early to call the elections.

Exit polls by expert Khalil Shikaki said Fatah was leading in six of the first 14 West Bank locations he examined, while Hamas led in two. Smaller factions and independents led the others.

Official results are expected on Sunday, but Fatah activists already took to the streets of Gaza yesterday to celebrate.

The elections are hard to interpret, because tribal rivalries and local matters counted at least as much as party affiliations. The real test is July 17, when Palestinians vote for a new parliament after 11 years – and Hamas fields candidates for the first time.

With the late Yasser Arafat and his mythical, charismatic leadership out of the picture, Palestinians are openly criticising the Fatah Party he headed and the government he created for widespread corruption, nepotism and inefficiency - and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, could pay the price despite efforts to clean up the government and its security forces.

Hamas has set itself up patiently with years of welfare programmes for impoverished Palestinians, especially in Gaza, and is poised to take advantage of voter disaffection with Fatah.

Hamas participation in elections bolsters Abbas’ hopes to co-opt the militants into mainstream Palestinian politics. But a strong Hamas showing in Thursday’s and other votes, especially this summer’s parliamentary ballot, would harm Abbas’ plans for a renewed Mideast peace track.

Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction and has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in the Jewish state. However, it agreed to a temporary ceasefire along with other militant groups in March.

Fatah took a beating in two earlier rounds of local voting, and Shikaki said party leaders learned their lessons from that. Fatah “did a good job preparing for this election by unifying itself and making a strong team with effective people”, he said.

Turnout was strong, with 70% of voters going to the polls in the West Bank and 80% in Gaza, according to election officials. The only reported incident of violence came from a town in central Gaza, where Hamas backers exchanged fire with police. One person was wounded. Each side blamed the other for the clash.

In Atara, a village near Ramallah in the West Bank, Palestinian security said Fatah gunmen raided election headquarters and stole the ballot boxes. Hamas activists said Fatah feared Hamas had won.

In the battered Rafah refugee camp, Salma Abu Gazar, 51, said she voted for Hamas because she wants change.

“We want clean streets and new projects, like sewage treatment, and our destroyed homes to be rebuilt. I believe that Fatah will not do anything. They will monopolise everything like they have done before,” she said.

However, Anton Salman, a leading Fatah candidate mentioned as a possible mayor for Bethlehem, predicted his party will reverse the downward trends.

Since the January elections, he said, “Fatah has built a new partnership with the local community in Bethlehem … Fatah got the message and we are running this election with people who have experience on the ground.”

In violence on Thursday night, Palestinians fired two rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot just outside Gaza, hitting a house. No one was hurt.

Israeli official David Baker charged that the Palestinian Authority is freeing suspects and “allowing them to perpetrate additional acts of terror. This has to stop.”

Palestinian security officials promised to investigate.