The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity AMAN held an evaluation session for the recent local elections and the role and participation of its security services by examining the extent of their interference on the voters decision, evaluating the performance of the security services in facilitating the holding of the local elections, as well as studying the process of the security services personal voting in terms of regulations, monitoring mechanisms and evaluating the experience of allowing security services to participate in the nomination and polling.
The session was attended by many specialists and experts from many related institutions, including the Central Elections Commission, security services, the Legislative Council, the Independent Commission for Human Rights, the Public Prosecutions office, as well as journalists and representatives of civil society organizations and political parties, who considered that the Palestinian legislator made a good choice by authorizing the employees of the security services to participate in the elections with establishing some restrictions to ensure the integrity of this process and not being politicized, but it was obvious that these regulations were insufficient and are not taken into account nor respecting what is stated by law.
The attendees agreed on the need for adequate controls to ensure that the members of the security services voting, nomination and cooperation with the other parties to guarantee the protection of the electoral process, and limit the impact of such participation on the elections to the minimum, although that the Central Elections Commission indicated that the security cooperation was very good and the number of complaints which were submitted were no more than two.
regarding the early voting of the members of the security services, participants agreed on not letting all security services members vote in advance, suggesting that this vote be limited to the individuals involved in securing the elections, which reached 2,400 out of 10,000 who voted in advance.
In relation to the most prominent violations recorded by the observers, they were represented in the presence of some security members, carrying weapons in the polling stations and the continuation of the electoral campaigning during the ballot, in addition to some interventions by the security services especially in some areas such as, Tulkarm and Hebron, which tried to influence the decision of the voters, as well as using the state property and security services in some areas in favor of Fateh movement.
The participants considered that the biggest challenge is the difficulty of proving that there were interventions or violations committed by members of the security services, which most people were aware about, but afraid to acknowledge for reasons regarding fear of such security services and other family reasons, emphasizing that these violations are not confined to polling day only, but extends from the stage of the formation of lists and selection of candidates proceeding to the election campaigning and voting, and ending with sorting and announcing the results.
The participants called for advocacy to complete the second phase of the elections, represented in legislative and presidential elections without taking into account any differences and conflicts, pointing out the importance of paying attention to the possibility of holding elections in the future with the participation of Hamas, accompanied by the participation of the security services operating in the Gaza Strip, which requires to consider the role of the security services and the limits to their interference in the electoral processes, considering that the such security services interference is not accepted in the West Bank and is prohibited in Gaza, emphasizing the need to distinguish between the official intervention accompanied by a decision from the highest levels of the security services, as occurred during the 2016 elections with the participation of Hamas which were postponed to a later time, and the recent elections and the participation of Fateh movement against Fateh and some other parties which did not pose a threat to the form of regime in the West Bank, whereas interventions were on an individual bases.
