Hamas poised to make mark in elections

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RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The militant movement Hamas is in position to establish a major presence in the Palestinian parliament in the first elections since 1996, registration for which began earlier this month.

The municipal and parliamentary balloting, projected to begin on the local council level before the end of the year, will offer Palestinians their first chance to vote on their leadership since the heyday of the Oslo peace process.

But with widespread disillusionment over corruption in the Palestinian Authority and the lack of a firm date prompting doubts whether the elections will be held at all, the response has been lackluster at best.

Further obstacles have been thrown up by Israeli authorities, who this week arrested several Palestinians for registering voters in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian-majority area that Israel regards as part of its eternal capital.

All that has left a huge opening for Hamas, which boycotted the 1996 vote to protest the Oslo process but is encouraging its followers to register this time.

Untarnished by the charges of corruption that have soured many on the Palestinian Authority and its president, Yasser Arafat, Hamas is running even with Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip and positioned to win at least some legislative seats in the West Bank, polls show.

Some Hamas officials believe their movement, which has yet to make a final decision on whether to run, could capture at least some local councils and enough seats in parliament to seriously challenge Fatah.

"People are not sure that this election will transform them or move them forward," said Ghazi Hamad, who edits a newspaper affiliated with the radical movement behind most attacks on Israelis launched from Gaza. "Hamas is trying to tell the people that this election may lead the way to reforming the situation."

Baha Bakri, a spokesman for the Central Election Commission, said his organization's goal is to sign up at least 60 percent of the 1.6 million Palestinians who have the right to vote.

But he acknowledged that only 4 percent to 12 percent of eligible voters have turned up at the 1,000 registration centers established by the commission earlier this month.