Ramallah – October 3: The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) expresses its complete and utter rejection of holding local elections in the West Bank and excluding the Gaza Strip. This step deprives citizens in the Gaza Strip of practicing their democratic right to vote and run for office. This decision also constitutes a clear deepening of division and steers our society towards further fragmentation. It is a real threat to our cause and liberation struggle for freedom, and to establishing a civil democratic state.
The Supreme Court issued a decision on Monday October 3, 2016 ordering a halt on local elections in Gaza and calling for holding them solely in the West Bank. PWWSD considers this decision a danger to national unity and to past efforts of the women’s movement, political parties and factions, and CSOs working to bridge the political rift. Massive amounts of continuous work has been done to make these elections a path for ending division and a step towards agreeing on presidential, legislative, and Palestinian National Council elections in the future. Countless individuals and groups have worked to revive a unified vision for our national goals, to mobilize all capacities and efforts towards resisting Israeli occupation, which should constitute the main and only hurdle in our national liberation equation.
The organization also calls on all political powers, institutions, and parties to agree on a specific date to hold unified elections for all. As holding them in the West Bank and excluding the Gaza Strip will only serve to deepen this division whose end is long overdue.
PWWSD demands a serious national dialogue between political powers and civil society to find solutions and remove any hurdles leading to this halt in elections, in order to guarantee democratic rights and freedoms, including the right to vote and run for office.
The organization also calls on the Central Elections Commission, as the election supervisory body, not to implement this decision threatening our people’s unity.
End of statement.