Annual Report - Palestinian Center for Human Rights

The new law gave women better representation than under the previous law. Article 4
stated, “Each list competing in the proportional system quota must include one
woman in the first 3 slots, one woman in the next 4 slots and one woman in each
subsequent 5 slots.”
On 20 August 2005, President Mahmoud Abbas issued a Presidential Decree
stipulating that elections for PLC members would be held in Jerusalem and all other
governorates on Wednesday, 25 January 2006. The elections were held as scheduled,
while this report was being compiled. International and local monitors, including
PCHR, who organized a monitoring campaign in cooperation with 30 other civil
society institutions, concluded that the elections were fair. The elections were an
impressive show of democratic practice in the OPT. 40
Incomplete Local Council Elections
The year 2005 witnessed important developments on the local elections front. The
PNA continued to implement its plan to hold local council elections in stages. PCHR
viewed this development positively, despite some of the later measures that hindered
completion of all stages before the end of the year.
The Palestinian Cabinet decided on 10 May 2004, “to hold local council elections in 3
stages starting in August 2004 and ending within a year, if the conditions permit as
such.” Contrary to this decision, the elections were reorganized in five stages but
from December 2004 until the end of 2005, only four stages were held.
The first stage was carried out in two phases, on 23 December 2004 and 27 January
2005, and included 36 local councils. The elections on 23 December 2004 were held
in 26 West Bank communities and the second phase in January 2005 was held in 10
Gaza Strip communities.
PCHR was involved in monitoring all stages of the elections held in the Gaza Strip.
In this regard, the Centre trained 73 monitors who were distributed in the 10 contested
council districts. These monitors were part of the PCHR team that had monitored the
Presidential election on 9 January 2005. In addition, seven PCHR staff members
supervised the monitors. The Centre issued a preliminary assessment of the elections.
Monitoring reports and questionnaires from every polling station indicated that the
polling and vote count processes had been conducted in an orderly and peaceful
manner. In addition, all phases were fair in all polling stations. In March 2005, the
Centre issued the final report on monitoring for polling and vote counting. The final
report reiterated the findings of the preliminary assessment.
The second stage of local elections was held on 5 May 2005. It included 84 local
councils, 8 in the Gaza Strip and 76 in the West Bank. PCHR exercised its
monitoring role in all stages of the electoral process and issued a preliminary
assessment of the elections on 8 May 2005. The Centre was satisfied with the polling
and vote counting processes. In addition, the elections were completely transparent,
with candidates and their representatives present for all stages. Nonetheless, the
40 Complete coverage of the elections and their implications on democratic development are outside the
scope of this report, which covers only the human rights situation in the OPT during the year 2005.
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