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Summary
The Party Law in Palestine

Summary of the Seminar organized by PASSIA at Best Eastern Hotel in Ramallah on Political Parties Law and the upcoming PLC elections

Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi, head of PASSIA, opened the session with a brief background about the Palestinian political system since the Israeli occupation in 1967 and the Palestinian steadfastness amid various laws governing the Palestinian society, including the British Mandate laws, the Jordanian laws that used to govern the West Bank before 1967 and the Egyptian law that governed Gaza Strip before 1967, in addition to the Israeli military orders. He continued: Despite the Israeli oppression and military orders, the Palestinian civil society and NGOs worked with the masses and the first turning point was during the First Intifada when for the first time, the Palestinian citizen was able to intervene to formulate the Palestinian political realm and system which came in the form of the unified command (consisting of the Palestinian national and Islamic factions) and popular committees which worked on organizing the Palestinian life, then came the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords which drafted laws to govern the Palestinian political life for the interim period. That was the second intervention of the Palestinian to draw up his own laws to govern the Palestinian political life. The Palestinian society witnessed the general elections in 1996 which brought about the Palestinian Legislative Council as the legislative body of the Palestinian people in the Palestinian lands. Then came the 2005 presidential elections with three parties participating in the elections (Fatah, DFLP and PPP). The PLC elections are expected to take place in July 2005, and there is a need to contemplate over the past experience and avoid the shortcomings that existed in the past elections in order to build a real democratic political system that can meet the needs of the Palestinian masses. There is a major role for the Palestinian political parties in the next PLC elections, which draws up the question of the Political Parties Law and where do we stand from a legal point of view.

Dr. Abdul Hadi introduced Mr. Ammar Dweik, an official in the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, who was invited to talk about his experience in the Commission and on the Palestinian Political Parties Law.

Ammar Dweik: the issue of the Political Parties Law is a problematic issue since it tackles very sensitive issues inside the Palestinian factions that seem in agreement over not raising the issue of the need for political parties' law under the current conditions of occupation and lack of real sovereignty. Such a law requires from all factions to reveal many confidential matters that seem impossible now under the occupation. The other issue deals with registration of the parties or political entities at the Palestinian Interior Ministry.

Ammar stressed on the need to get the new law ratified by the PLC and signed by the President by Mid April if PLC elections are to be held in July. So far, there is no serious tendency by the PLC to get the new elections law ready by that date.

Some of the participant called on the Palestinian central elections commission to act on the basis of the old law and not wait for the new elections law, but Ammar explained that they cannot spend amounts of money with the old law in mind and then face the possibility of working according to a new law which requires certain changes.

Ammar believes that a political parties law is necessary to organize the political life in Palestine and to reinforce the principles of transparency in the elections in terms of financing the election campaigning or the monitoring of elections by the agents of the parties

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