Monday, May 09, 2005
Elections you haven't heard about
There are a couple of elections, one next weekend and another just completed, that you don't hear much about in the American media.
In Taiwan, next weekend's special election is turning into a referendum on President Chen's China policy. I hope Chen's party suffers at least enough symbolic defeat to forestall a declaration of independence, for reasons discussed ad nauseum on this blog.
Meanwhile, Fatah and Hamas duke it out in elections among the Palestinian Arabs. Fatah "won," but I have no idea whether they exceeded expectations going in to the election. There is bound to be much more intelligent discussion of the elections elsewhere. For a detailed take from a lefty Brit who blogs from Bethelem (he is a pro-Palestinian activist), go here. His tight discussion on the politics of Bethlehem is very interesting:
In Taiwan, next weekend's special election is turning into a referendum on President Chen's China policy. I hope Chen's party suffers at least enough symbolic defeat to forestall a declaration of independence, for reasons discussed ad nauseum on this blog.
Meanwhile, Fatah and Hamas duke it out in elections among the Palestinian Arabs. Fatah "won," but I have no idea whether they exceeded expectations going in to the election. There is bound to be much more intelligent discussion of the elections elsewhere. For a detailed take from a lefty Brit who blogs from Bethelem (he is a pro-Palestinian activist), go here. His tight discussion on the politics of Bethlehem is very interesting:
In order to understand the real significance of the Bethlehem vote, attention must be paid to detail. In Bethlehem seven seats were reserved for Muslim candidates and eight for Christian candidates. This meant that unlike the other 2,519 candidates competing for 906 seats in the 84 municipal councils throughout the rest of the West bank and Gaza, the competition was not a straight Fatah verses Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) match. Rather it was a contest between differing streams within Fatah, the relatively localized PFLP and an array of indepdent candidates. This being the case, Bethlehem, was dubbed as 'one of the most hotly contested areas’. However, it was also one of the four municipalities’ where Hamas made some real headway.
Ultimately, six of the seven ‘'Muslim'’ seats went to Hamas (with the Islamic Jihad taking the eighth) while the eight seats reserved for Christian candidates were divided equally between the PFLP and Fatah. Perhaps the UK could learn another lesson, or rather put substance behind its rhetoric of ‘cultural and religious’ diversity. In the UK on Thursday only four out of the 646 seats were taken by Muslim candidates, however, at least 19 Muslim MPs would need to be elected in order to reflect the community's estimated 3 percent of the electorate (roughly 1.1 million).
Although the election results have still to be officially announced by the Central Election Committee (CEC), the unofficial election results indicate that overall Fatah has won a majority in 45 of the local councils, while Hamas has won 23 and the remaining 16 councils are shared between the PFLP and independent candidates lists. The next stage of Palestinian democratization (aside of course from the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army and the destruction of the separation wall) is scheduled for 17 July 2005, when the electorate will once again go to the ballot box to elect members to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Meanwhile, the car horns continue but for tonight I cannot. The noise is too overwhelming. I wonder what it sounds like at home?
1 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Mon May 09, 11:30:00 AM:
Thanks for this, Hawk. Great info!
