JERUSALEM, 7 January 2005 — A far-right member of Jerusalem’s Israeli municipal council vowed yesterday to sabotage the Palestinian presidential election in the holy city’s Arab sector by blocking access to the polling stations.
“There will be several hundred of us coming to pay bills, buy stamps and thus create long queues inside and outside the post offices” where the polling is due to take place, David Adari told Israeli Army radio.
Adari, a member of the pro-settler National Religious Party, explained that the aim of the operation is to delay the voting process and dissuade east Jerusalem Palestinians from taking part in Sunday’s election.
The radio said several Arab Israeli members of Parliament made an urgent plea to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, asking him to take the necessary measures to prevent the sabotage attempt.
Some members of the Israeli government had been reluctant to allow the residents of east Jerusalem to take part in the ballot for fear that it would undermine negotiations towards a final status agreement.
However Sharon agreed after heavy international pressure to allow voting via post offices in a repeat of the procedure used in the previous election in 1996.
The Palestinian Central Electoral Commission (CEC) said in a statement sent overnight that the conditions for a fair election had not been met in Jerusalem.
“Voting arrangements for Palestinians in Jerusalem do not conform to the standards of free, fair and transparent elections,” it said.
It charged that the capacity of the post offices made available for the ballot did not exceed 5,500, a fraction of the estimated 120,000 Jerusalem ID cardholders eligible to vote. However, it is believed that the vast majority of Palestinian voters in Jerusalem feel more comfortable voting outside the Israeli municipal boundaries and will travel to suburbs which lie inside the West Bank.
No Vote for Palestinian Prisoners
The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday rejected an appeal by the Palestinian Authority that Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails be allowed to vote in Sunday’s ballot to elect a successor to Yasser Arafat.
Rejecting an appeal filed by Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Hisham Abdelrazzeq, the three Supreme Court judges said there was not enough time to organize a ballot in the various Israeli prison facilities where some 8,000 Palestinians are behind bars.
Abdelrazzeq and two representatives of the prisoners filed appeals with the Supreme Court earlier this week shortly after an Israeli ministerial commission decided it would not authorize the prisoners to vote in the election.
Speaking to AFP in Gaza City, Abdelrazzeq slammed the decision as “illegal” and a violation of the prisoners’ human rights.
“There is no legal basis to this decision. It’s illegal and a political decision,” he said.
“It’s a fundamental right for all Palestinians to participate in this election. This decision violates Palestinian human rights, but we will work to guarantee the participation of all prisoners in the parliamentary elections,” he added, referring to the legislative elections which will be held in June.
Issa Qaraqa, who heads a Bethlehem-based Prisoners’ Club, said the court’s decision did not come as a surprise because Israel considered the detainees as little more than “criminals and terrorists”.
“Israel is now preventing these prisoners from exercising their political rights (because it) wants to hide the prisoner issue,” he told AFP
