Abbas mulls postponing PLC election to change voting law

[barb162]

Last update - 04:36 20/11/2005


Abbas mulls postponing PLC election to change voting law

By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the elections committee overseeing parliamentary elections to prepare for the possibility that the January 25 elections will be postponed.

Senior PA officials confirmed to Haaretz that although no official announcement has been made, there is an intention to postpone the elections by several weeks.

The officials also said that the new Palestinian elections law will be changed in the near future, from a mixed system, in which half of the 132 members are chosen in regional elections and the other half in individual races under the proportional method, to a system in which all seats are to be won by the proportional method.

snip

The officials added that Fatah is behind the initiative to delay and change the election system, having failed to overcome internal disputes and complete primaries to determine the movement's list of candidates for the legislative elections. Fatah primaries were scheduled for early last month, then postponed to the beginning of this month and are now expected at the end of this week.

snip

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/647596.html

[dcfirefighter]

1. Proportional Representation

Good for them. I wish we had it - the method they have now seems like a good fit for us.

Of course our voting systems have more fundamental problems, such that any discussion of proportional representation is currently just a pipe dream.