Hamas challenges Fatah rule in Palestinian election

By Wafa Amr and Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Islamic militant group
Hamas made a strong showing in a Palestinian parliamentary
election on Wednesday, just a few percentage points behind the
ruling Fatah movement, first projections showed.

The strength of support for Hamas in the first Palestinian
parliamentary election in a decade raised the prospect that it
could win government posts for the first time and deal a
further blow to hopes for peacemaking with Israel.

Exit polls from three institutions all put Fatah ahead, but
by margins of only between three and seven percentage points.

The highest projection for Fatah was 47 percent in a poll
by Bir Zeit University that gave Hamas 44 percent, also the
highest estimate for the militant group. The other polls gave
results of 46 to 40 percent and 42 to 35 percent.

Pollster Khalil Shikaki said Hamas appeared to have won all
the seats in Gaza City, the group’s powerbase.

Both sides claimed victory and fired guns in the air to
celebrate in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas said it
believed it had won over 50 percent of the vote.

“Hamas is making huge progress,” said spokesman Sami Abu
Zuhri, telling supporters “your efforts did not go in vain.”

Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel,
was expected to capitalize on Fatah’s image for corruption and
mismanagement. It has largely respected a truce for a year.

Palestinians voted at polling stations across the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, emerging with index fingers daubed in blue ink
to prevent fraud.

“This election might bring change,” said voter Khalil Tato
in the West Bank city of Hebron. “… a reduction of
unemployment, an end to corruption and better and stronger
negotiations with the Israelis.”

Militants under orders to avoid trouble on election day
after weeks of armed chaos left their weapons outside.

Turnout was estimated at more than 73 percent.

PEACEMAKING DOUBTS

Israel has said future peacemaking would be in doubt if
Hamas, responsible for many suicide bombings during a
five-year-old uprising, took a role in government. Washington,
which lists Hamas as a terrorist group, has also voiced
concern.

But Abbas, elected a year ago after the death of former
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said the Palestinian
Authority was ready to resume long-stalled talks with Israel
even if Hamas joined his government.

“We are approaching a new period and we hope that the
international community will help us return to the negotiating
table,” said Abbas, hailing the peaceful voting.

Israel and the United States rule out any contacts with
Hamas unless it renounces violence, disarms and drops its
charter provisions calling for eliminating the Jewish state.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization. Under current
circumstances I don’t see any change in that,” said White House
spokesman Scott McClellan after first projections emerged.

Even if Hamas does not win outright, it is expected to do
well enough to be offered cabinet seats in a power-sharing
deal.

“The test of democracy is not this election, the test is in
the day after when you have to start enacting policy,” said
Israeli spokesman Raanan Gissin.

Abbas hopes once Hamas enters parliament it might be
prepared to relinquish its weapons.

Despite signals this week it might be open to indirect
talks with Israel, Hamas reiterated on Wednesday it would not
change its charter or give up its weapons.

LITTLE TROUBLE

Only a few incidents marred the election, in which 1.4
million people in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Arab East
Jerusalem were eligible to vote for a 132-member parliament.

A festive mood prevailed at polling places in East
Jerusalem, where Israel allowed limited voting under U.S.
pressure and as long as Hamas did not campaign there.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war
and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.
Palestinians say it must be their future capital.

Voters chose from 11 party lists across the Palestinian
areas and more than 400 candidates running locally in the first
parliamentary elections since 1996. About 900 foreign
observers, led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, were
present.

Israeli troops pulled back from West Bank population
centers to avoid accusations of interfering in the polls.

Interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in his first
policy speech since assuming the powers of Ariel Sharon who
suffered a stroke on January 4, said he hoped the Palestinians
would elect a government ready to follow a U.S.-sponsored “road
map.” He is widely favored to win Israel’s March 28 election.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Allyn
Fisher-Ilan, Jeffrey Heller, Megan Goldin and Tali Caspi in
Jerusalem and Haitham al-Tamimi in Hebron)