Palestinians started on September 4 their registration for legislative and presidential elections as well as local councils, without announcing specified date for the elections.

Presenting his passport at a polling station in his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat was the first to register at the more than 1,000 voter registration centers which opened throughout the West Bank and Gaza Saturday.

Some 1.8 million eligible Palestinian voters to register in theWest Bank and Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

While registering as a voter, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters that legislative elections in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) would take place "immediately" after local elections.

"As you know, local council elections will start in 30 councils as soon as possible, to be followed immediately with legislative and presidential elections," Arafat said.

Regarding his own candidacy for the presidency, Arafat said it was not up to him to nominate himself. "I do not decide the nomination myself," he said. "I am a man who follows our traditions."

Arafat's Fatah movement has to nominate its candidates for president, the Legislative Council and local councils. The United States and Israel have been urging the Palestinian people to elect an alternative leadership to Arafat, whom they do not regard as a peace partner.

But Palestinian public opinion polls show that Arafat would easily win the ballot.

At the same time, there is growing dissatisfaction in the Palestinian areas over corruption in the Palestinian leadership. "I do not win legitimacy from them. I win legitimacy from the steadfast and enduring Palestinian voter only," Arafat said when asked about US and Israeli objections to his re-nomination.

He complained that Israel had placed many obstacles in the way of Palestinian elections, first planned for Jan. 20, 2003, hoping European and international intervention would help the Palestinians hold free and democratic elections as soon as possible.

Members of the Palestinian Legislative council (PLC) expressed satisfaction after the voter registration started Saturday, believing that Arafat showed commitments to hold elections and his commitment is translated into deeds.

The first stage out of four in local council elections is planned to start on Dec. 9, but legislative and presidential elections have been initially set - after several delays - for next spring, it was reported.

According to Ali Jarbawi, General Secretary of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, almost 1.8 million Palestinians are expected to register at the different voter registration centers during the coming five weeks.

He said eight political parties have registered as parties to monitor the registration and this also allows them to participate in the elections.

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has also decided to register, changing a previous long-standing boycott decision by the second largest movement in the Palestinian areas, Jarbawi said.

He added that he did not expect the voter registration to go smoothly, in the light of the daily curfews and Israeli military incursions in the Palestinian areas, and particularly in East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967 and which has six voter registration centers.

Israel does not allow any PNA activity in East Jerusalem even though a previous agreement allowed Palestinians who live there to participate in the only Palestinian elections held so far, in 1996.

The last Palestinian general elections were held in January1996. Within the last few years, many Palestinian voices called for holding elections. Several dates had been set up for the elections, but each deadline passed.

Many Palestinians including Arafat are arguing that the voting process could not take place while Israeli soldiers were occupying all the West Bank towns, refugee camps and cities.

About nine Palestinians political parties had announced to participate in the elections, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Democratic Front which had rejected to participate in the last1996 elections.

Hamas and Jihad as well as the left-wing parties refused to participate in the previous elections, saying that since they are against Oslo and holding elections is an outcome of Oslo, therefore they didn't participate.

The Palestinian mainstream Fatah movement chaired by Arafat has not applied yet to participate. However, Fatah leaders announced that the mainstream movement would later drop a request to participate in the election.

"All the Palestinian factions and powers are proud of the elections and all would be participating," said Arafat.

Source: Xinhua