Another New (Palestinian) Political Party
Perhaps hoping to emulate the Israeli one, the Palestinian political system is undergoing its own shakeup:
Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salam Fayyad is planning to form a new party that will run in next January's parliamentary elections, sources in Ramallah said on Saturday. Fayyad, who recently announced his intention to resign, apparently in protest against the way PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas was handling the PA finances, will head the new party, which will be independent and serve as an alternative for those who don't want to vote for the ruling Fatah party or Hamas.
The sources said legislator Hanan Ashrawi and former Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, one of the heads of the Geneva Initiative group, are expected to join Fayyad's party.
Those are some big names - Ashrawi and Rabbo (to say nothing of Fayyad) have been Fatah loyalists for decades. Of course, electoral developments in Palestinian areas aren't really the point - at a minimum, before they matter, you need to be able to hold an election:
In a related development, more incidents of violence were reported over the weekend during primary elections held for Fatah, especially in the Tulkarm area. In addition to Tulkarm, elections were held on Friday in Salfit [near Nablus] and Hebron. Many Fatah activists complained of massive voting fraud and irregularities. In one incident, a PA police officer in Tulkarm opened fire at a polling station after claiming that the names of thousands of voters had been removed from voter rolls. Two people were injured in the attack. The officer demanded that the vote be halted before he was captured...
Shortly after the results were announced, scores of gunmen attacked the main election center in the city, shooting into the air and claiming that the elections were not fair. No one was hurt, but the gunmen managed to steal several ballot boxes and voter rolls. They accused Rajoub's followers of stealing the vote through fraud and intimidation.
Which helps to explain why Ynet has an article this morning doubting the tenability of Palestinian democracy.
In other Palestinian civil society news, firefights broke out between rival clans in the Gaza Strip on Friday. Final toll: five dead and forty injured.
Palestinian Authority Finance Minister Salam Fayyad is planning to form a new party that will run in next January's parliamentary elections, sources in Ramallah said on Saturday. Fayyad, who recently announced his intention to resign, apparently in protest against the way PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas was handling the PA finances, will head the new party, which will be independent and serve as an alternative for those who don't want to vote for the ruling Fatah party or Hamas.
The sources said legislator Hanan Ashrawi and former Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, one of the heads of the Geneva Initiative group, are expected to join Fayyad's party.
Those are some big names - Ashrawi and Rabbo (to say nothing of Fayyad) have been Fatah loyalists for decades. Of course, electoral developments in Palestinian areas aren't really the point - at a minimum, before they matter, you need to be able to hold an election:
In a related development, more incidents of violence were reported over the weekend during primary elections held for Fatah, especially in the Tulkarm area. In addition to Tulkarm, elections were held on Friday in Salfit [near Nablus] and Hebron. Many Fatah activists complained of massive voting fraud and irregularities. In one incident, a PA police officer in Tulkarm opened fire at a polling station after claiming that the names of thousands of voters had been removed from voter rolls. Two people were injured in the attack. The officer demanded that the vote be halted before he was captured...
Shortly after the results were announced, scores of gunmen attacked the main election center in the city, shooting into the air and claiming that the elections were not fair. No one was hurt, but the gunmen managed to steal several ballot boxes and voter rolls. They accused Rajoub's followers of stealing the vote through fraud and intimidation.
Which helps to explain why Ynet has an article this morning doubting the tenability of Palestinian democracy.
In other Palestinian civil society news, firefights broke out between rival clans in the Gaza Strip on Friday. Final toll: five dead and forty injured.
