Hamas and Fatah traded allegations of irregularities and voting fraud as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians headed to the ballot boxes on Thursday to elect new municipalities and village councils in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Hamas officials claimed that Fatah activists and Palestinian Authority security officials had attempted to influence voters by putting pressure on them to vote for Fatah candidates in several areas.
Muhammad Ghazal, a senior Hamas official in Nablus, complained that his representatives at polling stations in the Tulkarm area discovered cases of forgery in the voting, especially in the village of Anabta, where the ballot boxes were closed temporarily pending an investigation. He claimed that PA officials had also threatened to cut off social welfare payments from voters who did not cast their ballots for Fatah.
In the village of Abassan in the Gaza Strip, Hamas representatives accused Fatah activists of shooting and wounding Hamas supporter Khaled al-Shaer during a quarrel at one of the polling stations.
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1115259522405Voting fraud? On THIS planet? Nah....