Arrests Cloud Palestinian Campaigning

It was hardly an auspicious kickoff.

Hours after the official launch of campaigning for municipal elections in this town of 30,000, four candidates from the local Islamic bloc were rounded up by Israeli soldiers and accused of being involved in terrorism as members of the militant group Hamas.

The arrests have overshadowed the campaign here as Hamas makes its first foray into Palestinian electoral politics. The election will be held in phases starting Dec. 23, with voters in 26 West Bank communities choosing from among 887 candidates for the 306 local council seats.

The detentions have drawn charges from Palestinian officials of Israeli interference in the election and have unnerved other candidates from the so-called Islamic Bloc for Change, most of whom are teachers who take care not to mention Hamas in their campaign literature.

During an interview, three Islamic bloc candidates in Dahariya declined to be affiliated with Hamas, known formally as the Islamic Resistance Movement. They were not among those arrested last week.

“We’re not saying to you that we are members of Hamas,” said one of the candidates, English teacher Mujahid abu Ridi, citing fears of arrest. “We are just teachers.”

Abu Ridi said the arrests in Dahariya, a town of narrow lanes and stone buildings 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem, were an attempt by Israel to undermine the Islamic bloc. He said the detentions violated Israel’s pledge to help the Palestinians conduct smooth elections. Rival blocs also have condemned the arrests.

“From the beginning to arrest our candidates, this is not a democratic process to us,” Abu Ridi said. “Israel wanted to send a message: ‘Do not elect these people who believe in the Islamic idea.’ ”

Jamal Shobaki, the Palestinian Authority minister for local government, said the election in Dahariya might be postponed because of the arrests, which he labeled a “flagrant interference in the Palestinian elections.”

Israeli officials said they would not interfere with candidates who were not suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.

“We don’t arrest these people for political activities,” said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“It’s not because they’re running for election or members of Hamas. It’s because they’re involved in terrorist activities.”

Israel regularly arrests Palestinians it suspects of being involved in terrorism.

Hamas, which has carried out dozens of bombings and other attacks against Israelis during the current intifada, is boycotting the presidential election. The group doesn’t recognize the Palestinian Authority because it was formed under the Oslo accords negotiated with Israel in 1993.

Hamas is, however, competing in municipal elections, the first balloting for local councils in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1976. Its candidates are not running under the group’s name, but as part of Islamic slates in numerous areas.

The first stage of the municipal campaign opened Dec. 9. The election gives residents the opportunity to choose mayors and city council members, positions that previously had been appointed by the Palestinian Authority. The vote is also seen as a warmup to the presidential balloting scheduled for Jan. 9.

Although the presidential contest is dominated by questions of conflict and peace, the burning issues for local candidates in Dahariya are the more humdrum concerns of local governments everywhere: water, schools, roads. At stake are the 13 seats on the local council; a mayor will be chosen from among the members.

Residents and officials say party labels and platforms probably will have far less influence on the outcomes of the local races than tribal affiliations and a candidate’s reputation. Dahariya has 10 major clans, and some families are represented on more than one slate.

In addition to the Islamic bloc’s 13 candidates, the Dahariya ballot will feature a full slate for Fatah, the dominant faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and partial rosters for two smaller independent movements. In all, 50 candidates are running, 12 of them women.

Talk of the election -- and the arrests -- is buzzing through the butcher shops, groceries and vegetable stands in Dahariya’s congested downtown. Banners with the candidates’ photographs are popping up, and residents are starting to consider the choices.

The most recent Palestinian elections were in 1996, when voters elected Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president and picked an 88-member parliament.

“This is a great opportunity for people to elect their own representatives,” said Raed Mosbah, 32, who runs a falafel stand on Dahariya’s congested main avenue. “At least the people trust who they are choosing.”

The town council disbanded months ago amid chronic feuding. The Palestinian Authority appointed a mayor, but he doesn’t live in Dahariya.

A long list of problems awaits the winners of the local vote.

A growing population has overstretched the town’s water system, which provides barely one-twelfth of what is needed. Residents must dig their own wells or buy water that is trucked in. There are too few schools for the 8,800 local children, forcing teachers to conduct classes in two shifts each day.

Making matters worse, tax revenues and available jobs have plummeted due to the withering toll of four years of conflict. Dahariya once called itself the “Gate of the South” because of its location near the West Bank boundary with southern Israel. But the passage of workers and merchandise between the two areas has stopped.

The Islamic bloc and those running as independents hope to capitalize on voter disaffection with the ruling Fatah, whose candidates are running as the National Bloc of Development and Construction. Challengers say the city administration, dominated by Fatah, has been corrupt and incompetent, charges also made against the Palestinian Authority.

“We need change. There was mismanagement and financial corruption,” said Ali Mohammed, 43, a shopkeeper running as an independent.

Fatah appears equally determined to stop Hamas. Critics fear that the militant group will favor its followers over other residents.

“We have to win the majority,” said Mousa abu Allan, a 52-year-old jeweler on the Fatah slate.

The Islamic bloc candidates are vowing to stay in the race, despite the arrests. Abu Ridi said the detentions might swell local sympathy -- and, in turn, vote tallies -- for the jailed candidates and the rest of the slate.

But fellow candidate Abbas Shabaan, 62, a retired teacher whose son was arrested, sounded deflated.

“Before we started running around,” he said, “they knocked us down.”