Legislative elections were held in the Palestinian territories on 25 January 2006 in order to elect the second Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The result was a victory for Hamas, contesting under the list name of Change and Reform, which received 44.45% of the vote and won 74 of the 132 seats, whilst the ruling Fatah received 41.43% of the vote and won 45 seats.Central Elections Commission (CEC)
The newly elected PLC met for the first time on 18 February 2006.Excerpts from President Mahmoud Abbas’ Speech to the Opening of the PLC. Palestine-Israel Journal, Vol 13 No. 1, May 2006 Incumbent Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei tendered his resignation on 26 January 2006, but remained interim Prime Minister at the request of President Mahmoud Abbas. On 20 February, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was nominated to form a new government. The new government with Haniyeh as Prime Minister was sworn in on 29 March. , no new elections have been held since this one.
Background The 2006 elections were the second elections to the PLC. The first elections took place in 1996, but the subsequent elections had been postponed for many years due to disagreements between Fatah and Hamas. Hamas was considered a terrorist organization by countries like the United States. Along with this, Yasser Arafat's cabinet called off the 2003 election because it claimed that the "Israeli military occupation of West Bank cities made a free ballot impossible".
After Arafat's death in 2004, a new election was held. In March 2005, twelve Palestinian factions reached an agreement, the Palestinian Cairo Declaration, which called for elections to be held using a mixed voting system rather than the majority electoral system used in 1996.1995 Elections law , 7 December 1995.
In June 2005, the PLC legislated to give effect to the Cairo Declaration, increasing its membership from 88 to 132, with half being elected by proportional representation and half by plurality-at-large voting in traditional constituencies.Elections Law No 9 of 2005, Article (2). 13 August 2005. Source Palestinian voters in both the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) were eligible to participate in the elections. Earlier, the 2005 municipal elections and the 9 January 2005 presidential election had taken place.
The PLC elections were originally scheduled for 17 July 2005, but on 9 August Abbas announced that they would take place in January 2006. On 20 August Abbas set election day as 25 January.Palestinian Elections Set For Jan. CBS/AP 20 August 2005 On 15 January 2006, Abbas declared that, despite unrest in Gaza, he would not change the election date unless Israel prevented Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting.Abbas: Palestinian polls on schedule. Aljazeera, 15 January 2006 Israel had already stated that it would not allow campaigning in East Jerusalem by Hamas, which had carried out the majority of terror attacks against Israel in the previous five years and refused to recognise Israel or the Oslo Accords.
The United States spent $2.3 million in USAID on support for the Palestinian elections, allegedly designed to bolster the image of President Abbas and his Fatah party. USAID's Offices used discretionary spending accounts for various projects, including tree planting, schoolroom additions, a soccer tournament, street cleaning, and computers at community centers. USAID removed its usual branding requirement on its sponsored activities. As a result, the US was accused of trying to influence the outcome of the elections.U.S. Aid to the Palestinians , pp. 3-5. Jeremy M. Sharp, CRS Report for Congress, 2 February 2006 (RS22370) The European Union supplied election observers to "assess the whole election process, including the legal framework, the political environment and campaign, electoral preparations, voting and counting as well as the post-election period".EU Election Observation Mission for Palestinian Legislative Council Elections. European Commission, press release IP/05/589, 23 May 2005
Electoral system
In the 1996 elections 88 PLC members were chosen from several multi-member constituencies via block voting. In advance of the 2006 elections, the electoral law was changed to enlarge the PLC from 88 to 132 seats and to introduce a degree of proportional representation via a parallel voting system. The mixed voting system divided PLC seats into two groups: 66 seats (50%) elected by proportional representation of the Palestinian territories as a single district, and 66 seats (50%) by the majoritarian system in electoral districts.PCHR Position on the Presidential Decree on the Election Law. PCHR, 4 September 2007
Each voter received two ballots. On the first, the voter chose one of the registered party lists. 66 of the seats were distributed proportionally (in accordance with the Sainte-Laguë method) to those lists that received more than 2% of the total list votes cast. The candidates from each list would be elected in the order they appear on the list. Each list had to include at least one woman in the first three names, at least one woman in the next four names, and at least one woman in the five names that followed.
The second ballot was for a voter's local electoral district, which may have more than one member to be elected. The voter could cast up to as many votes for individual candidates as there were seats in his or her district. Votes were unweighted, and the candidates with the most votes were elected. For example, a voter in the Nablus district could cast up to six votes; the six candidates with the highest number of votes were elected. In some districts, one or two seats were set aside for the Christian candidates with the most votes. For instance, in Ramallah, a five-seat district, the Christian candidate with the most votes was elected, even if the candidate was not among top five candidates overall. The six seats reserved for Christians were considered the minimum quota for their representation in the PLC.
There were 16 electoral districts, with the number of seats in each determined by its population: Jerusalem: 6 seats (2 reserved for Christians) Tubas: 1 seat Tulkarm: 3 seats Qalqilya: 2 seats Salfit: 1 seat Nablus: 6 seats Jericho: 1 seat Ramallah: 5 seats (1 reserved for Christians) Jenin: 4 seats Bethlehem: 4 seats (2 reserved for Christians) Hebron: 9 seats North Gaza: 5 seats Gaza City: 8 seats (1 reserved for Christians) Deir al-Balah: 3 seats Khan Younis: 5 seats Rafah: 3 seats Total: 66 seats (6 reserved for Christians)
Campaign Fatah Before the 2006 elections the PLC was dominated by the Fatah movement, which held 68 of the 88 seats. However, Fatah had been beset by internal strife, with younger and more popular figures like Mohammed Dahlan (who took part in the negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords) and Marwan Barghouti (serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail on terrorism charges) levelling allegations of corruption against the Fatah leadership. Fatah organised primary elections to determine its candidate list, but the results were disputed and central lists were imposed in some areas. The younger faction submitted a list dubbed Al-Mustaqbal ("the Future"), headed by Barghouti. However, on 28 December 2005, the leaders of the two factions agreed to submit a single list to voters, headed by Barghouti, who actively campaigned for Fatah from his jail cell.Jerusalem Post, 30 December 2005, Barghouti apologizes for Fatah mistakes, failures Despite this, the two groups were by no means fully reconciled.
Change and Reform list The Islamist Hamas movement campaigned as the Change and Reform list, and was Fatah's main political rival. It had refused to participate in the 1996 elections and viewed the Palestinian Authority as illegitimate due to its negotiations with Israel ; while it did not change that position , it fielded candidates in 2006.
The prospect of a Palestinian Authority dominated by Hamas alarmed Western governments, which provided foreign aid that made up almost half of the PNA's budget. It was fear of a Hamas victory that was largely credited with driving the reconciliation between the main Fatah list and the Al-Mustaqbal breakaway faction.
Independent Palestine list The Independent Palestine list was headed by Mustafa Barghouti, a distant relative of Marwan Barghouti. Mustafa Barghouti came in second in the 2005 Palestinian presidential election. The main component of this list was the Palestinian National Initiative. The list promised to fight corruption and nepotism, to demand the dismantling of the Israeli West Bank barrier, which it terms the "apartheid wall", and to provide "a truly democratic and independent 'third way' for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas."
Abu Ali Mustafa This list was formed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and is named after Abu Ali Mustafa, the General Secretary of the PFLP who was assassinated by Israeli forces in 2001. The PFLP is the second largest member of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), after Fatah.
Third Way The Third Way list was headed by Finance Minister Salam Fayyad and former PA Minister of Higher Education and Research Hanan Ashrawi. Their platform focused on reform of the security forces, democratic improvements and socioeconomic progress.
In the run up to the election a Fatah leader in Nablus accused the Third Way of receiving funds from the CIA.
The Alternative The Alternative list was a coalition of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian People's Party, the Palestine Democratic Union (Fida), and various independents. The list was headed by Qais Abd al-Karim (Abu Leila) from the DFLP. The PPP candidate received 2.67% in the 2005 Palestinian presidential election. In the list vote, its best vote was 6.6% in Bethlehem, followed by 4.5% in Ramallah and al-Bireh and 4.0% in Nablus.
National Coalition for Justice and Democracy The National Coalition for Justice and Democracy list was headed by Gazan Eyad El-Sarraj, who was a consultant to the Palestinian delegation to the Camp David 2000 Summit and heads a group of Palestinian and Israeli academics working towards a peace agreement. The list's main platform is security reforms, establishing the rule of law and respect for human rights.
Opinion polls Date Pollster Samplesize Fatah Hamas Independent Palestine Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa The Alternative Third Way Others Undecided 20–21 January 2006 Palestinian Public Opinion Polls 1,720 42.8% 34.2% 6.5% 6.6% 3.1% 4.8% 2% – 5–6 January 2006 Palestinian Public Opinion Polls 1,360 39.3% 31.3% 10.4% 6.8% 1.4% 5.5% 3.6% – 29–31 December 2005 PCPSR 4,560 43% 25% 5% 3% 2% 2% ＜2% 19% Early December 2005 PCPSR 1,316 50% 32% - - - - 9% 9%
Conduct
Israeli obstruction In the lead-up to the elections, on 26 September 2005 Israel launched a campaign of arrests against PLC members. 450 members of Hamas were detained, mostly those involved in the 2006 PLC elections. The majority of them were kept in administrative detention for different periods.Palestinian Legislative Council Members Addameer, 2013 In the election period, 15 PLC members were captured and held as prisoners. Legislative Council Members - Prisoners . Central Elections Commission