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A New Ball Game 4 `
Follows The Elections
Saturday's Palestinian elections have created new
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o one can say what the re-
sults of the vote for the
Palestinian Council and its
president would have been
had the Islamic opposition
(Hamas and the Islamic Jihad)
participated in the contest. But
even as matters stand, the out-
come of election — a stunning vic-
tory for Yassir Arafat (who culled
88.1 percent of the ballots against
9.3 percent for Samiha Khalil)
and for his Fatah movement
(which, between official candi-
dates and movement-associat-
ed independents, gained 65 of the
Council's 88 seats) — suggests
a number of important conclu-
sions:
The high turnout (75 percent
of the registered voters) indicates
that the Palestinians rejected the
call of the Islamic opposition to
boycott the elections and regis-
tered a whopping vote of confi-
dence in the agreements
(however wanting, in their eyes)
that Mr. Arafat has signed with
Israel. The latter is certainly im-
plied by Mr. Arafat's huge mar-
gin of victory over Mrs. Khalil;
she made the inadequacies of the
Oslo accords the leading plank of
her platform.
So, from Israel's standpoint,
it's difficult to deny that the La-
bor Party's secret negotiating,
openly recognizing, and finally
signing a series of agreements
with the PLO — rather than
plugging away at the arid talks
with locally based Palestinians
(who were only an opaque front
for the Tunis leadership, anyway)
— has been vindicated.
Clearly, Israel got a far better
deal from Mr. Arafat than it
would have from the PLO "in-
siders," who were holding out for
a promise of Palestinian state-
hood. Had Dr. Haidar Abdel-
Shafi (the head of the Palestinian
delegation to the Madrid Con-
ference and subsequent negotia-
tions in Washington) signed the
Oslo I accord, he would have been
branded a Quisling, and the
peace process would have been
stalled indefinitely.
The Palestinians have proved
themselves a far more pragmat-
ic and sophisticated electorate
than their detractors had given
them credit for. While more peo-
ple than expected voted along the
lines of traditional clan loyalties
and 75 percent of the Council's
seats were won by Fatah candi-
dates or independents identified
with the movement, considering
that the Islamic and leftist fac-
tions were not officially running,
the "opposition" made an im-
pressive showing. They won 10
seats (six independents identified
with the Islamic front, three with
the leftist Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, and one
from the formerly Communist
Palestinian People's Party).
As political scientists have
been quick to point out, the re-
sults in the first Israeli elections,
held in 1949, were similar (heav-
ily weighted.toward Mapai), even
with opposition parties partici-
pating.
An analysis of the results also
shows that many people voted on
the basis of economic and social
rather than purely political con-
siderations. They knew how to
pay back old debts, handing Mr.
Abdel-Shafi and Hanan Ashrawi
There's little reason
to believe that the
Palestinian Council
will be merely a
rubber stamp for Mr.
Arafat.
(the heroes of the original Pales-
tinian negotiating team) re-
sounding victories. And they
knew a good woman when they
saw one, giving an impressive
seven seats to women (three in
Gaza, three in East Jerusalem,
one in Nablus), which partly com-
pensated for Mrs. Khalil's crush-
ing defeat.
All in all, there's little reason
to believe that the Palestinian
Council will be merely a rubber
stamp for Mr. Arafat's policies
and whims. Although only 10 vic-
torious openly represent opposi-
tion views, a number of others
(including independents identi-
fied with Fatah) can be counted
on to give the president a hard
run for his money. These include
Dr. Abdel-Shafi, long an outspo-
ken critic of the PNA's policies
and standards, and former-Civil
Rights Commissioner Harlan
Ashrawi. What's more, unlike in
the Knesset, members of the
Palestinian Council must answer
to constituents in their home dis-