Posted by Worker Bee at 1:08am Jan 27 '06People went to bed last night thinking that Fatah had won. (Or well, people that follow that sort of stuff did, I had no idea). I woke up this morning to hear that Fatah had the most votes, but not a majority, and would need a coalition.
I got to my government class, and we were told that Hamas had won. And as we are a comparative government class, we absoluly had to discuss it a bit. We watched about half of Bush's press meeting... The first half of what we saw had him complimenting the Democratic Proccess in Palestine. The other half of what we saw had Bush being all "but we can't work with a party whose platform includes the destruction of another country"
Of course, both of those were reasonable things to say.
I mean, first off, it was an INCREDIBLY democratic election. Somewhere around 80% turnout. No violence. Basically an ideal election.
But of course, many people take issue with the fact that Hamas won.... Israel is currently refusing to talk with Hamas, and Hamas has apparently tried to indicate that they'd like to work with Fatah, but Fatah has stated that it will refuse to work with Hamas.
The thing is... Was it the militant backers that provided most of the votes to Hamas...
...Or were the votes primarily from people who were simply fed up with Fatah, votes from people that acknowledged that most of their social services were provided by Hamas (oh, hm, I wonder why they support Hamas if that is who is willing to give them access to schools and to healthcare...)
And if the votes mainly were from the more moderate sort, would Hamas be willing to compromise its more militant aspect?
At the moment, I do not know what to think of this all. Am I surprised at the results? Not really. Not that I knew much going into it, but an article I read a couple of years ago in Time Magazine about Hamas providing social services has had a long and major impact on me...
And I do not know what to think, because it is too soon to tell what the election means.
I'm really quite surprised that nobody else has posted on it (or well, I looked on debates, politics, controversy, and current events and didn't see anything)...
Anyways, yes.
So Hamas was elected.
I got to my government class, and we were told that Hamas had won. And as we are a comparative government class, we absoluly had to discuss it a bit. We watched about half of Bush's press meeting... The first half of what we saw had him complimenting the Democratic Proccess in Palestine. The other half of what we saw had Bush being all "but we can't work with a party whose platform includes the destruction of another country"
Of course, both of those were reasonable things to say.
I mean, first off, it was an INCREDIBLY democratic election. Somewhere around 80% turnout. No violence. Basically an ideal election.
But of course, many people take issue with the fact that Hamas won.... Israel is currently refusing to talk with Hamas, and Hamas has apparently tried to indicate that they'd like to work with Fatah, but Fatah has stated that it will refuse to work with Hamas.
The thing is... Was it the militant backers that provided most of the votes to Hamas...
...Or were the votes primarily from people who were simply fed up with Fatah, votes from people that acknowledged that most of their social services were provided by Hamas (oh, hm, I wonder why they support Hamas if that is who is willing to give them access to schools and to healthcare...)
And if the votes mainly were from the more moderate sort, would Hamas be willing to compromise its more militant aspect?
At the moment, I do not know what to think of this all. Am I surprised at the results? Not really. Not that I knew much going into it, but an article I read a couple of years ago in Time Magazine about Hamas providing social services has had a long and major impact on me...
And I do not know what to think, because it is too soon to tell what the election means.
I'm really quite surprised that nobody else has posted on it (or well, I looked on debates, politics, controversy, and current events and didn't see anything)...
Anyways, yes.
So Hamas was elected.
So, Hamas was elected to the Palestinian Authority - Worker Bee