RAMALLAH: As Palestinians were electing a new parliament for the first time in 10 years yesterday, a widespread sense of frustration with the status quo prevailed at the polling centres where they cast their ballots.

Voting for the first time in parliamentary elections, 25-year-old Rami expressed his disappointment with Fatah, the party that has single-handedly governed the Palestinian autonomous areas since 1996, by putting a cross next to list number 6 on the ballot paper - Hamas.

“It’s not wrong to try them,” he said of the militant Islamic movement. “We always voted for Fatah and we didn’t see anything from them. Now we want to try something else.”

Car mechanic Said, still wearing his oily blue overalls, took time off from his garage to cast his ballot in the Evangelical School of Hope in Ramallah’s predominantly Christian Masyoun neighbourhood, making his mark next to the ‘Change and Reform’ list of Hamas.

“God willing, we hope that the ones who come will be better than the current ones. We didn’t see anything good from them,” said the 34-year-old.

At an elementary school in an all-Muslim neighbourhood in El-Bireh, a Ramallah suburb, support for Hamas seemed even stronger. Green was the dominant colour as many of the dozens who gathered outside waved Hamas flags or wore Hamas sashes.

But Ihab Sumreen, a 32-year-old municipality employee, said he chose Fatah “because they are the mother of the revolution and the ones who sacrificed the most for the country.”

“Ten years of Fatah is not enough to show that it failed. We want to give them a second chance,” he said, adding “if Hamas wins, we should say goodbye to the Palestinian cause, because the world would look at us differently. We would be terrorists for the world and we would come under Taliban rule.”

The high unemployment, rising lawlessness and lingering corruption in the Palestinian Authority (PA) were high on the agenda of many voters.

As he cast his ballot in the Ramallah elementary school, former planning minister and Birzeit University president Nabil Qassis played down widely-felt criticism of the current Palestinian leadership.

“Definitely there is an evaluation of the party that is in power. This always happens. So obviously there will be a change, but the degree of change remains to be seen,” he said. – DPA