Palestinian students give leaders lesson in democracy

By Ali Abo Rezeg and Anees Barghouthi

ANKARA/RAMALLAH (AA) - This week’s student union elections at the West Bank’s Birzeit University provided a lesson in democratic practice for Palestinian leaders who have failed to end the decade-long rift between rival Palestinian political factions, experts say.

“Palestinian student elections, which are regularly held despite years of inter-Palestinian political division, show that the Palestinian people welcome the rotation of power,” Ahmad Rafiq Awad, a Ramallah-based expert on Palestinian affairs, told Anadolu Agency.

Awad described this week’s student elections -- which were won by the Hamas-affiliated Islamic Wafaa Bloc for the third year in a row -- as “an important measure of the competing parties’ popularity”.

The results of this year’s election, he added, were a “clear indication that Hamas maintains a strong popular base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank".

According to Gaza-based professor Adnan Abu Amer, Birzeit University has long been considered a stronghold for Palestinian national movements, with many of Palestine’s current leaders having graduated from the university.

“The election results surprised many observers,” he told Anadolu Agency. “The Hamas-linked bloc managed to win despite years of persecution in the West Bank.”

-Lesson

According to Abu Amer, Palestinian political movements should “learn a lesson” from this week’s student polls.

“Novel social-media platforms appear to have made Palestinian youth more in tune with political and democratic principles than some Palestinian leaders,” he said.

Abdulrahman Hamdan, a spokesman for the Hamas-linked student bloc, told Anadolu Agency: “We are very thankful to Birzeit University for providing a free environment in which to hold elections.”

He went on to attribute the bloc’s electoral victory to “the many services with which we provide our colleagues at the university”.

“We have always been their best representative,” Hamdan asserted, “while defending their rights before the university management.”

“No one can ignore the political history of our bloc, which serves as an extension of the Palestinian resistance project,” he said.

Hamdan went on to urge the Palestinian leadership “to emulate the student union elections and end years of inter-Palestinian division by returning to the ballot box -- and respecting its results”.

Saleem Wahdan, a 21-year-old student and member of the Fatah-affiliated Yasser Arafat Bloc, congratulated Hamas for its victory, which it called “an expression of democracy practiced by West Bank universities”.

He went on to attribute the Fatah bloc’s loss to “disunity” among the ranks of the Fatah movement.

“We lost the student election due to the absence of a clear political and organizational program on the part of Fatah’s leadership,” he said.

“This election should serve as a message to the [Fatah] leadership that they must change their approach in order to restore Fatah’s leadership role in the Palestinian political arena,” he added.

-Ongoing divisions

Palestine’s last legislative elections, held in 2006, likewise saw Hamas win a majority of seats -- a development that took most observers by surprise.

The following year, clashes erupted in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Fatah, which led to the total route of the latter and the establishment of Hamas rule in the coastal enclave.

In 2014, Hamas and Fatah -- the latter of which controls the influential Palestinian Authority -- agreed in principle to establish a unity government.

The so-called “unity government” later set up in Ramallah, however, has so far failed to take on a governing role in Gaza -- where Hamas still holds sway -- due to continued differences between the two ideologically-opposed movements.