Palestinians to Head for Legislative, Presidential Elections for 1st Time in 15 Years

Today, Wednesday, the Palestinian Central Elections Commission announced the launching of the voter registration process across the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians are preparing to cast ballots in the legislative and presidential elections for the first time in 15 years.

Hanna Nasir, head of the electoral committee, indicated that "the voter registration process is one of the main stages of the official electoral process, and will continue until the evening of Tuesday, February 16th."

Regarding the number of those registered in this process, Nasser explained, "The number of registered so far has reached about 2.4 million citizens, constituting 85% of the number of citizens eligible to register, which is a high percentage."

Nasser also revealed that "Starting from  today, the committee will open 80 information and voter registration centers in a number of schools, and during the field registration period, the committee will provide field teams of 600 male and female employees, who are spread across all governorates of the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

He added that the members of these teams "are equipped with electronic tablets to help citizens register their names electronically, or inquire about their previous registration information, and amend their polling place if their place of residence is changed".

Several Palestinian factions issued a statement after meetings held in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Tuesday and Monday, with the aim of creating a roadmap for the implementation of the next three-stage Palestinian elections, in which they confirmed that they had "agreed on steps aimed at ensuring that the Palestinian elections take place, as planned in later this year.

The Palestinian factions pledged to respect the results of the elections.

In the statement, the Palestinian "Fatah" and "Hamas" movements and 12 other factions, including the "Islamic Jihad" said that the participants pledged to "abide by the schedule" for the polls, and "respect and accept" the results.

The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, issued a presidential decree last month, setting the date for the legislative elections on May 22, and the presidential elections on July 31.