ADDRESSING THE DAILY NEEDS:

Yasser Arafat's local election gambit: The Palestinian Authority sees the vote as a possible major boost to Arafat's legitimacy and answer to calls for reform. (Ben Lynfield, 10/14/04, CS Monitor)

Fighting may be raging all around, but Taleb Hamed has his mind set on elections. He is striving to become mayor of Silwad, a small West Bank town near Ramallah that is taking part in a ballot-box gambit by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Mr. Hamed, a young, soft-spoken former Hamas activist, is one of dozens of potential new leaders starting to emerge as the PA organizes the first local elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since Israeli occupation in 1976. Registration for the elections was due to close Wednesday and the first round of polling is slated for Dec. 9.

Among Hamed's goals: getting the PA to complete the building of a hospital after years of delay, improving roads, building a new school, and bringing a bank to the area. "We have to address the daily needs of the people rather than [focus on] other issues such as jihad," says Hamed, an Islamic-studies teacher who condemns suicide bombings as being contrary to Islam.

But there is much more at stake in these municipal elections than local issues, which were until now handled by PA appointees. The PA sees the vote as a prelude to legislative and presidential elections and as an initiative that could give a major boost to Yasser Arafat's legitimacy and help answer calls for democratic reform. The risk for the PA, however, is that Hamas will be crowned the most popular Palestinian political faction, at least in Gaza.

John Kerry would not apply such pressure.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 13, 2004 10:36 PM