Fatah gets `clear majority'

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 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.