A radio episode on youth's role in supporting elections

What is the Palestinian youth's role in supporting the elections? What is their importance for them and for the Palestinian cause? And what is the extent of youth's turnout to register in the elections?

These questions were answered by Ms Shadia al-Ghoul, head of the MIFTAH institution's office in the Gaza Strip, during a radio episode titled “Youth's role in supporting the electoral process” on the local Zaman radio within the programme “Electoral Issues” — within the project “Strengthening civil society's role in supporting the Palestinian elections”, implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies with funding from the Government of Canada.

Al-Ghoul opened her talk by affirming that the elections are a national entitlement as stipulated in Palestinian law, and a fundamental right of the Palestinian citizen included in the local laws and the international norms the Palestinian Authority has signed — since the citizen has the right to choose who represents them in the National and Legislative Councils.

Al-Ghoul added: “National necessity requires national cohesion on clear national foundations.”

She made clear that the Palestinians look forward to founding a state, and the state has its foundations, the first of them democratic life — which came after the President issued the elections decision, but they were postponed; and hopes look forward to these elections being scheduled, after the wounds of the Gaza Strip are bound up, because they are a purely national and legal demand in the current stage to face all the crises and the occupation's arrogance.

She said: “The youth and the Palestinian people showed clear indicators of their interest in the elections, the first of them registration in the elections. For example, the Gaza Strip was the place with the most registration in the elections, as the registration rate reached 80 per cent, and this is an indicator of youth's thirst to take part in the elections. Second, we have 36 electoral lists, and 6 fully youth lists, and this is another proof of their thirst for the elections.”

She made clear that civil society institutions set out to embrace the youth and unify their visions around the elections — pointing out that the MIFTAH institution found many visions among the youth for taking part in the elections, and worked to unify the youth in the electoral lists: it carried out a series of encounters to unify their visions, and many of the youth united in a single list. The institution likewise trained the 36 lists in Gaza.

Al-Ghoul added: “What I saw grieved me among the young and women candidates — numbering one hundred — for the Legislative Council, whether on the factional or the independent lists: they did not have sufficient knowledge of the Legislative Council's competencies and laws, so the MIFTAH institution intervened and prepared a training programme for them. And I place the responsibility on the political parties, because they fall short toward their candidate members and cared only for the numbers and ordering of their members.”

She continued: “The decision to postpone the elections was issued, and I have 20 training headings that the young and women candidates of the Legislative Council need. And now, after the latest escalation on Gaza, work must be done to bind up Gaza's wounds, and to invest this time in preparing and training the Legislative Council candidates.”

Al-Ghoul concluded by saying: “The elections are a legal and national entitlement, and the Palestinian leadership must respond to it and issue a new decision to hold the elections.”

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