The Fatah movement of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas captured a clear majority of the more than 80 towns and villages that staged local elections, beating back a strong challenge by the Islamic movement Hamas, an election official said yesterday morning.
Thursday's voting in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was seen as an important test for Abbas, who himself was elected just four months ago.
Fatah won a majority in 50 of the municipalities, while Hamas captured 28, the director general of the local election commission, Firas Iari, said in the West Bank city of Ramallah. It was not immediately clear which groups, if any, controlled six other municipalities that voted on Thursday. The balloting was the third of four rounds of municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza.
In years past, municipal officials were appointed, with almost all coming from Fatah's ranks. But Fatah's traditional dominance was facing its first major threat from Hamas. A common refrain among voters has been that these leaders have failed to deliver basic services and that corruption is widespread.
"We've been trying the same people for years, and they've done nothing for us," Suleiman al-Arja, 53, said Thursday at a polling place in Rafah. "We want new faces. We want change."
The atmosphere was festive, and the city center was clogged with Hamas supporters waving green banners and Fatah backers hoisting yellow flags. Hamas, which boycotted Palestinian elections until the municipal voting began five months ago, has won the support of many Palestinians with its attacks against Israel, including its suicide bombing campaign. But the group has pledged to observe a temporary truce.
Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction and seeks to establish an Islamic state, also provides a broad array of charitable services to impoverished Palestinians.
Fatah, a secular, nationalist movement founded by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president who died last November, still has the strongest political network in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Opinion polls still show Fatah as the leading political movement, though it has steadily lost ground to Hamas in recent years.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS