Some 400K Palestinians vote in rare elections
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinians took part in rare municipal elections across the occupied West Bank on Saturday, following months of simmering anger towards their government and the cancellation of promised parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year.
Some 400,000 Palestinians are eligible to vote in the election where they will select representatives for 154 village councils under the jurisdiction of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.
Municipal elections are typically held every four to five years and last took place in 2017.
The increasingly unpopular president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, confined the election to rural municipalities, postponing voting in the West Bank’s major cities where anger towards his ruling Fatah party is most acute.
Saturday’s elections are also being boycotted by the militant group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas’s spokesman, Abdulatif al-Qanou, told The Associated Press that the group wants parliamentary and presidential elections and considers holding the municipal vote alone a violation of previous agreements.
The popularity of the Palestinian government has plummeted since Abbas canceled long-awaited legislative and parliamentary elections in April. Abbas blamed the cancellation on uncertainty around whether Palestinians from east Jerusalem would be able to vote, although critics accused him of postponing out of fear that his party would lose to Hamas.
Popularity for the militant group has surged among Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since May’s 11-day war.