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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Fatah claims win after Hamas vacates stage |
| 2012-10-21 |
| FATAH supporters were claiming victory yesterday before the official results in the first West Bank election since 2006, in a local poll boycotted by Hamas. In the southern city of Hebron, supporters of the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, were out on the streets celebrating yesterday. The movement claimed in a statement to have won in most of the municipalities, towns and villages on the West Bank. "We consider the victory as a major popular referendum on the movement's political program and its national performance," spokesman Ahmad Assaf said. Polling stations shut yesterday after 12 hours of voting and preliminary results were expected to start coming overnight. Shortly after the end of voting, Hanna Nasser, chairman of the Central Elections Commission, said 277,000 of the 505,600 eligible voters had cast ballots, putting the turnout at 54.8 per cent. "The elections went very smoothly," he said in Ramallah. The last time Palestinians voted was in the general elections of January 2006: the Islamist Hamas movement won by a landslide. Hamas also chalked up major wins during local elections in 2005, the first time it participated in the democratic process. |
| Posted by:tipper |