Can election observers boost confidence among Palestinian voters?
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission is registering local and international monitors for October's municipal elections, a move favored by the Palestinian factions in light of the Fatah-Hamas division.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The local elections scheduled for Oct. 8 in Gaza and the West Bank — the first following the Hamas-Fatah split in June 2007 and including the majority of the factions — has created a buzz on the Palestinian street. The Central Elections Commission announced in a July 14 statement on its website that it had begun receiving requests for accreditation by potential election observers. Given the great interest in and importance of these elections, the commission had issued a call for observers July 10. The deadline for applications is Oct. 1.
Hisham Kahil, executive director of the elections commission, told Al-Monitor that the commission had officially called on several international organizations, embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions to Palestine to take part in supervision and monitoring. He said the US-based Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute and the Jordanian government had agreed to supervise the elections. He anticipates that the commission will be receiving additional volunteers in the upcoming days.
“The goal behind calling on international institutions is to promote the credibility of the elections and their results,” Kahil said. International participation will be similar to that for the 2006 legislative elections. That election had 17,611 observers, 850 of them from abroad.
Salah Abdel Ati, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies (Masarat), told Al-Monitor that the international and local monitoring of the electoral process will help put Fatah and Hamas officials at ease given their mutual trepidation.
