Legislative Election, January 2006
By Ryan Griffin, Research FellowJack Santucci, Research Associate
Published February 1st 2006
Palestine
held elections to its Legislative Council on January 25, 2006. In
that vote, Change and Reform (Hamas) took power away from the governing
Fatah movement, winning 75 of 132 seats. Some commentators declared
this a sweeping mandate for Hamas, speculating especially on what the
power shift means for Israeli-Palestinian relations, but the election
results are not an accurate reflection of popular opinion. Instead, the
election system itself is at least as important as popular opinion in
determining the makeup of the Council.