Palestinian presidential election kicks off, poll shows Abbas to win

The historic Palestinian presidential election kicked off throughout the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem on Sunday morning to choose a successor to late leader Yasser Arafat.

Eligible voters began to cast their votes in the polling stations dotted in the territories at 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), and the voting process will last for 12 hours.

Seven candidates are running for the chairmanship of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), including Mahmoud Abbas, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee.

According to recent polls, Abbas is the front-runner and expected to get about half of the votes.

The voting time might be extended if there are no enough people to turn out for the poll, said Palestinian officials.

In the central area of the Gaza Strip, mainly in the town of Deir el Ballah, dozens of people arrived at several voting stations Sunday morning.

A local resident told Xinhua that everything was fine, the process went smoothly and there were no problems.

"I voted for Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and I hope that he will be the successor to our late President Yasser Arafat," another resident said on condition of anonymity.

In Rafah, witnesses said the poll opened at 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), and hundreds of people were seen going to schools, where voting stations are set up.

Official figures said 51,910 Palestinians, who are over 18 years, are entitled to vote in the area, and they will head to 106 polling stations.

"We didn't expect to see this huge number of Palestinians participating in the election. It is a democratic process, and everything goes in calmness and there are no problems," said Yahya el Farra, mayor of the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis.

It won't take a voter more than three minutes to check his name and drop his vote into the ballot box.

Palestinian voters will cast their ballots in 16 election districts, 11 in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and five in the Gaza Strip.

The number of voters mounted after the Palestinian Central Elections Committee approved a law which allows those who are over 18 but didn't register for the election to vote.

The number of those who registered in the election had reached 1,282,524, 863,000 in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and 419,000 in the Gaza Strip.

There are 1,077 voting centers in the 16 election districts, including 70 centers for those who didn't officially register for the election.

Each voter has his thumbnail painted with a special kind of ink that can be indelible within 24 hours. It is a means that the Central Election Committee is using to avoid fraudulent practice.

Some 800 foreign election monitors from a number of countries and non-governmental organizations, along with some 21,000 local observers, will be at every election center to oversee the whole process.

The final results of the election will be announced on Monday morning. The candidate who gains the highest number of votes will be declared as the new president.

Latest poll shows Abbas to win Palestinian elections

A poll conducted by the Palestinian center for Polls showed on January 8 evening that Palestinian interim leader Mahmoud Abbas, also Fatah movement's candidate, is to be elected as the permanent new leader to succeed late Yasser Arafat.

On Sunday morning, 1.8 million Palestinians would head to the ballots all over the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem to elect a new Palestinian leader from among seven candidates.

The poll conducted in the last two days showed that Abbas is thefirst winner, independent candidate Mustafa Barghouti is the secondand Tayesser Khaled, the Democratic Front (DFLP) candidate is the third.

The poll said that Abbas would get 51.8 percent of the votes, Barghouti would get 25.3 percent and Khaled would get 6.1 percent, while Bassam Salhi would get 5.6 percent, Abdel Kareem Shubeir would get 3.1 percent, Abdel Halim al Ashqar would get 3.2 percent and Sayeed Baraka would get 2.1 percent.

Head of the Palestinian center Nabil Kukali said that all interviews for the poll were conducted indoors, adding that 212 haphazard sample was taken, including 160 in the West Bank and 52 in the Gaza Strip.

He added that the process of the poll looked like a voting in a ballot in advance.

Source: Xinhua