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Hamas Wins Polls in Major Cities: Leader
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“Hamas has taken 34 constituencies, particularly in the denser population zones,” Zahar said. (Reuters)
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RAMALLAH,
May 6, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A Hamas leader
said Friday, May 6, the Islamic resistance movement made a strong
showing in the second round of elections by winning four of the five
major towns where the polls took place.
Mahmud
El-Zahar told a press conference in Gaza City the group would abide by
the official results of the polls, but disputed preliminary figures
indicating that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s
Fatah won control of 52 of 84 municipal councils to only 24 for Hamas.
“Hamas
has taken 34 constituencies, particularly in the denser population
zones,” Zahar, one of the movement’s principal leaders, was quoted
by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.
Zahar
added many of the independent candidates who won council seats in the
West Bank actually belonged to Hamas but chose not to run as members
of the group for security reasons.
News
agencies carried photos of Hamas supporters celebrating the results
drabbed in the green flags of the group.
Respecting
Results
The
Hamas leader named Rafah and Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, along with
Qalqiliya in the West Bank as Hamas wins, and criticised early
results, which put Fatah unquestionably ahead, for sowing tension
during the Palestinian Intifadah against Israel’s long-standing
occupation.
Hamas
is “committed to respecting the election results,” he said.
Electoral
officials said Hamas also won the sprawling town of Beit Lahya in
northern Gaza.
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Hamas supporters celebrate victory. (Reuters)
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In
the West Bank’s Biblical town of Bethlehem, Hamas won six out of
seven council seats reserved for Muslims, with the seventh going to
Islamic Jihad, said electoral officials. Christians control the
council with eight seats.
Final
results of the second phase of the municipal elections are still due
on Sunday, May 8.
Fatah,
which has dominated Palestinian politics for the past five decades,
was left reeling after Hamas scored a landslide victory in the first
local elections in its Gaza stronghold last January.
The
next electoral battle between the two factions comes on July 17 when
Hamas is set to stand for election to parliament for the first time,
following the group's decision to join the democratic mainstream last
December.
Abbas
is said to be privately aware that the movement can break Fatah’s
long grip on power, but despite the rivalry, officials said the
campaign and vote passed off relatively smoothly, according to AFP.
Palestinians
also won widespread praise in January for successfully staging a
ballot to replace the late Yasser Arafat as their president.
Delegates
from the Council of Europe and the US-based National Democratic
Institute monitored the vote. Representatives from the NDI were due to
present their preliminary findings later Friday, May 6.
Overall
turnout was put at around 82 percent. Around 2,519 candidates stood
for election, including 399 women.
The
final round of local elections will be held in August.
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