GAZA: Hani Al-Masarai turned up the volume when the presenter on a local radio station in Gaza started talking about the municipal elections in the West Bank.
As a guest from Nablus was asked about the local elections, Al-Masarai, 32, who works as a barber, asked, “Why do we not have elections in Gaza?”
The second phase of local elections took place in the West Bank on Saturday, They included 50 cities and villages, including major cities, amid competition between the electoral lists affiliated with the Palestinian factions and independents, without the participation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“Politics controls all the details of our lives, they don’t want our voice to appear, they don’t want us to say no, they look at us as sheep. We don’t have an opinion, they choose for us who rules us and controls us.” Al-Masarai told Arab News.
He has never taken part in any elections in Gaza — he has only watched elections on television when they take place in other parts of the world.
“The last elections in Gaza were in 2006, and at the time, I was about 16 years old and did not have the right to vote. I have waited for a long time for the day I can go to the elections, but unfortunately, this has not happened,” he said.
Fatah and Hamas have more than once agreed to organize the legislative and local elections, but each time they have been canceled for different reasons. Most recently the legislative elections were canceled last May — President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel prevented them from being held in Jerusalem.
Rawan Yunis, 44, is upset that she cannot exercise her right to vote — that Palestinians are exercising their right in the West Bank but not in Gaza.
“We are victims of division. No one looks at us as normal citizens. We have the right to choose who represents us. Each party holds the other party responsible, and in the end there are no elections,” she said.
Rawan has voted twice in elections, the first time in 2005 when Abbas was elected, and then in 2006 for the Legislative Council elections.
“I look at my children and wonder what their future will be without democracy. Democracy gives the citizen the power to influence public policies.”
Hamas has appointed municipal councils in the Gaza Strip every few years without elections since it took control in 2007.
Ahmed Al-Rabai, 73, is not interested in the local elections taking place in the West Bank. “This is an unnecessary political play.”
Sitting in his house with some of his neighbors, he said: “We don’t want elections, we want freedom for our children, we want a decent life. Elections are a game for politicians. Whoever has money and power wins the elections.
“We voted in the elections before that more than once. What happens is, every time an election takes place, the worst comes. Everyone we elected, whether from Hamas or Fatah, tightened their grip on the people, and made us poorer.”