Municipal elections in Gaza; thousands turn up

1/27/2005 7:00:00 AM GMT

Palestinians voted on Thursday in the first municipal elections in the Gaza Strip, seen by analysts as a test of strength between President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas.

In the early hours of Thursday, thousands of Palestinians turned out to cast their vote for candidates vying for the 118 seats in 10 municipal councils throughout Gaza.

Across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians began forming lines at polling stations even before they opened.

"The election is our way of getting rid of corruption," Mohammed Abu Harbeed, a supporter of pro-Hamas candidates.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad enjoy widespread support and pose a challenge to the two-state diplomacy pursued by the dominant Palestinian Authority faction Fatah.

Hamas made significant inroads in last month's West Bank municipal elections in which the mainstream Fatah made the strongest showing.

The Islamist group, which runs a social welfare network, is generally even more popular in cramped, coastal Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians live in dire poverty.

Peace talks

In the lead up to the municipal council ballot, the Palestinian President has been holding ceasefire talks with resistance groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in order for the peace process to get back on track. The U.S. has continuously stated that a truce was a mandatory step for the U.S. backed peace road map to be revived.

However, Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that a truce in itself, without any move by Abbas to disarm the resistance groups was not a solution.

"A cease-fire is a ticking bomb that will explode in our faces. Therefore a cease-fire cannot be a long-term goal -- certainly not when (resistance groups) are preserving their infrastructures," Shalom told Army Radio.

The U.S. envoy William Burns, sent to the region under the orders of President Bush, is scheduled to hold talks on Thursday with both Abbas and Sharon in order to start exploring ways to move forward with the peace plan that would include mutual confidence-building steps.

In the run-up for as yet unscheduled summit meeting between Abbas and Sharon, high-level diplomatic talks between the two sides were resumed Wednesday after a two-year 'break'.

According to a Palestinian official, "The summit may take place around February 8th, if preparations are completed."

Israel broke all contact with the late Yasser Arafat which resulted in the stalling of any continuation of the peace road-map.

Israel's Foreign Minister Shalon said it was too early to start talking about the resumption of talks on a final peace treaty.

"I said that taking a step toward a permanent status agreement would be doomed to fail. I think that this was done in the past and did not succeed, and may have even brought about (the Palestinian uprising)," he said.

"There is a deep lack of trust between the sides, and thus this trust has to be rebuilt, step by step," he added.

Shalom was in Washington were he met the new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

According to the Israeli official, Rice "intends to be very active" in trying to achieve a settlement.