Palestinian elections results not final: official

A senior Palestinian official announced on Monday that results of the second stage of municipal elections were initial results.

Jamal al Shoubaki, chief of the highest committee for municipal elections, told reporters that declaring the final results is based on how many votes each candidate earned instead of how many votes each political faction earned.

The second stage of elections was held on May 5 in 84 municipal councils in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Ruling Fatah movement and radical Hamas movement traded accusations that each did not follow rules of elections.

Al Shoubaki said that the highest elections committee decided to wait for another week to study complaints of political factions and then the final results would be announced.

"The local elections committee would form a technical committee to study violations and breaches that happened during the voting process," Al Shoubaki said.

"According to the law, our committee will turn over all the complaints to the court, and after that, it will be the court which can decide," said Shoubaki.