Lecture: The history and future of elections in Palestine

7 July, 2019

Gaza — The Pal-Think for Strategic Studies institution carried out a lecture titled “The history and future of elections in Palestine”, within the project “The Youth Forum for Politics and Development”, which comes in cooperation with the “National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”. Pal-Think hosted the head of the procedures and training department at the Central Elections Commission, Mr Raed al-Samouni, with the participation of a team composed of 25 youth (13 females : 12 males) within the age category 18–24, who have the passion to learn about politics and development.

The lecture aimed at increasing the targeted category's awareness of the electoral procedures and the mechanisms of candidacy, with the goal of developing the youth's role from mere voting to effective participation and candidacy for the elections, and possessing the knowledge instruments needed to emerge and rise as future leaderships.

Al-Samouni spoke of the Palestinian elections law, including law No. (9), which the Palestinian Legislative Council approved in 2005. That likewise included acquaintance with the mixed electoral system, the proportional-representation system and the majority system, balloting, the age of candidacy, the women's quota system, electoral propaganda, and election observation.

In addition to that, al-Samouni discussed everything related to the local, presidential, and legislative elections. The encounter was interspersed with many enquiries that were discussed and answered.