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Hamas wins major student elections in the West Bank for second year running

Hamas scored another victory on Wednesday at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, winning 25 seats in the university’s student elections.

The university, considered the most liberal of all campuses in the West Bank, is seen as an indicator for the political climate across the West Bank.

The win was the second in a row for the Hamas-affiliated Islamic Wafaa’ Bloc, which won 26 seats last year, the first Hamas win at Birzeit since 2007.

The Martyr Yasser Arafat Bloc, affiliated with the Fatah movement, Hamas’ biggest rivals, won 21 seats on Wednesday, while the left-wing Qutub coalition bloc, affiliated with several leftist groups, the most well known of which being the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) took 5 seats.

Security was airtight while polling took place, as students and faculty alike take the elections very seriously, using several methods to safeguard against voter fraud.

Voting took place throughout the day and was highly organized. (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
Voting took place throughout the day and was highly organized. (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)

Students voted using their university issued numbers to receive their specific ballot, which was filled out in lecture halls monitored by university faculty as well as groups of student union leaders from each of the main parties.

Monitors (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
Monitors (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)

“We take notes as each student puts their vote in the box, some we can mark by their clothes, other students we know personally, and the rest is kind of a guess,” one of the Fatah-affiliated student monitors told Mondoweiss during polling.

The monitors kept track of their numbers and consulted with others from their groups as a way to hold a kind of exit poll and anticipate the outcomes before results came in.

After voting was finished, the monitors for that specific polling room, as well as university faculty, walked the sealed ballot boxes to an area where all ballots are counted, without the ballots ever leaving the sight of the student monitors, one faculty member explained.

Hussam Mansour (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
Hussam Mansour (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)

Hussam Mansour, a Birzeit student dressed in military garb with a green Hamas band around his arm, told Mondoweiss that he was supporting Hamas this year because of what he had seen the group do as leaders in the student council the year previously.

“My father was a big captain in the Palestinian Authority, and my family supports Fatah,” Mansour explained. “But I don’t see the PA doing anything good for the people, and everything that goes to Fatah goes to the PA government.”

“To me, being Hamas is not about being an Islamist or something, it’s about getting things done. I saw yesterday during the student debate three students wearing crosses, Christian students, who were supporting Hamas,” he said. “And I saw throughout this year, the way Hamas incorporated all student factions in their activities, and advocated for all students regardless of their politics, and that is something I support.”

In line with Mansour’s observations, Mondoweiss saw several young women without headscarf sporting green bands around their arm in support of Hamas.

According the recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 69 percent of Palestinians between the ages of 18 and 22 are calling for Palestinian President and Head of the Fatah movement Mahmoud Abbas to resign from office, five percent higher than the general population.

Mansour said students that were less likely to support the Fatah movement’s student group due to their distaste for the PA president were more likely to vote Hamas than for other groups because they saw Hamas as the faction most able to challenge Fatah.

Waleed (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
Waleed (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)

Waleed, a student supporter of the Qutub leftist coalition bloc, said that while he was voting Qutub, many of his leftist friends were choosing to vote Hamas as a way to insure a Fatah loss.

“We (Qutub) don’t get the votes of the people who are voting with the idea in mind that they want Abbas to resign, because those people are looking for who has the power and the numbers to take over. When they see Hamas is the party that is able to beat Fatah they vote for them, even if they are leftists,” Waleed said.

While Hamas won with numbers similar to last year’s election, the results were never a sure thing.

Two years ago, Birzeit University nearly doubled the amount of freshmen admitted each school year, meaning the freshmen and sophomore classes are much larger than the junior and senior classes.

As in 2015, the freshmen class was a wildcard, and both Hamas and Qutub affiliated upper-classmen accused Fatah of attempting to mislead freshmen into voting Fatah through a number of unsubstantiated claims.

Haya Bimbashi (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
Haya Bimbashi (Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)

Haya Bimbashi, who voted Fatah on Wednesday told Mondoweiss that while she was not at all political, she decided to take part in the elections this year and vote Fatah just the day before the elections.

“I saw the student debate yesterday and I liked what Fatah leaders had to say, so I think they deserve to win it,” Bimbashi told Mondoweiss. “In the end I’m not really politically involved, but it’s fun to take part in the elections.”

One thing was clear, while students took the elections seriously, they also kept their rivalries civil and friendly, with inter-mixed groups of students hanging out on campus together, eating, joking and enjoying the democratic process.

(Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
(Photo: Abed Al Qaisi)
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“Hamas wins major student elections in the West Bank for second year running”

But haven’t held a national election in over a decade. So, no blue ribbons for you.

“But I don’t see the PA doing anything good for the people, and everything that goes to Fatah goes to the PA government.”

I think this is the main point.

Numerically, Fatah has more supporters among Palestinian university students than any other. But overall, the largest single bloc (34%) of Palestinian university students are those who feel that no political party represents them or their interests.

Similarly to the parliamentary elections, many people cast their vote in support of Hamas as a protest against the PA and Fatah. That’s not to say that Hamas doesn’t have its supporters, they clearly do, but the “unaffiliated” vote is imo the most crucial factor in determining elections in Palestine.

A similar thing was witnessed when Mustafa Barghouti won almost 20% of the popular vote in the presidential election against Mahmoud Abbas. In this election, Barghouti was the protest vote, since Hamas did not nominate anyone for the presidency.

But what if Barghouti really was that popular, were people supporting him sincerely and not as a protest?

A fair question, but the parliamentary elections after which featured Barghouti as well as Hamas and Fatah candidates netted Barghouti a mere 2.7% of the vote, and the surge of Hamas. The rest is history.

These things need to be taken into account when discussing Hamas’ victories and the ever growing percentage of the population that feels abandoned by both parties.

That being said, I have heard that the Hamas student council at Birzeit is actually very professional and inclusive in how they operate. In any case, congratulations to all. Very high participation rate.

The university elections is a strong indicator for the street as 69% oppose the PA and support resistance.

The PA has been funded by the US, the Arab dictators and the zionists in order to be integrated within the zionist colonialist project and aid the zionists against the Palestinian people.

“At the time we abort 60% of the Palestinian attacks, the PA abort 40%.” said a zionist military commander … so .. the PA and the zionists are hand-in-hand to complete the zionist project and keep suppressing the Palestinian people

No wonder Hamas wins… and dont be surprised when the PA corrupt leadership will be toppled soon !!

If you consider yourself apart of the Cosmopolitan Internationalist tradition this article should be incredibly alarming to you. Hamas’s politics are absolutely vile. The political ideology that they subscribe to as whole is rather statist, feudalistic, capitalistic, religious, intolerant towards lgbt rights, barbaric, and not to mention I am of the opinion that they are a terrorist organization. Nothing revolutionary about Hamas to my knowledge, but rather sad that Palestinian youth have little to no interest in the Secular/Atheist political parties within Palestinian society. The Secular-Leftist PFLP got 5% of the vote. If Hamas wants to be taken seriously.. For starters they should consider scrapping The Protocols of the Elders of Zion from its Political Charter.