 The Palestinian Election Commission (CEC) said on Thursday it had resigned, but may reconsider if the government keeps a promise to heed its demands to reduce interference in a January 25 election. Hanna Nasser, the commission's president, had told Reuters it had submitted a letter of resignation in protest at a government decision to allow 60,000 security men to vote in their own barracks instead of going to vote in their districts.| The PA has 60,000 security men? Criminy. What do they *do* all day? |
| Half of them are holding the other half hostage ... |
Commission officials later said they were told that Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie's cabinet was rescinding the decision, clearing the way for the CEC to cancel its resignation. "Apparently there are attempts by the government to resolve the problem and retract ... In such a case the CEC will reconsider its decision to resign," a senior CEC official said. The CEC is an independent commission that supervises Palestinian elections. It would be impossible to conduct the parliamentary balloting without it as it is in charge of making logistical arrangements. Nasser said allowing security men to vote in their barracks would amount to interference and lack of transparency in the election process.| It might also prevent them from intimidating voters at the polls. Intimidation and bullying are the legitimate right of all Paleo hard boyz. You could look it up. |
He sent a letter of resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas's office late on Wednesday, but Abbas was abroad begging for money trying to find Suha's boodle and had not received it. Abbas has come under pressure from many senior members of his own deeply divided Fatah faction, including Qurie, to delay the election. Qurie resigned his candidacy last week in a move seen as a bid to postpone the balloting. Some in Fatah are worried by polls predicting the militant Islamic group Hamas, running for the first time for parliament, will make substantial gains, at the expense of the longtime ruling party founded decades ago by the late Yasser Arafat. |