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Fatah forces Election Commission to extend registration deadline

August 27, 2016 at 5:35 pm

The Palestinian Central Elections Commission has conceded that it was pressured by Fatah to grant extra time for  the registration of candidates for the local elections in the occupied territories. The deadline to accept candidates was originally set for Thursday night at 12 o’clock, but the commission was forced to extend the time, Safa news agency reported on Friday.

An informed source in the Commission told Safa that Fatah phone their headquarters in Ramallah and asked for the extension, noting that the call included a request to register 25 electoral lists from neighbourhoods across Ramallah.

He also said that the request to extend the time came after protracted differences among Fatah members and leaders regarding the names of their candidates. This was the reason, the source said, that Fatah could not meet the deadline.

After the end of the new deadline, the Commission would review the 860 applications and on Monday announce the final lists and the names of candidates on its website.