Congress debates a report on local elections in the Palestinian Territories – Council of Europe press release/Non-UN document

Congress debates a report on local elections in the Palestinian Territories

The Congress Standing Committee today adopted the report on the fourth phase of local elections in the Palestinian Territories, held in December 2005. Presenting the report on behalf of the Head of the Observation Mission Christopher Newbury (United Kingdom, EPP/CD), Ömür Aybar (Turkey, EPP/CD) stressed that the elections showed a marked improvement compared to previous phases because the Congress recommendations following the second phase in May 2005 have been taken into account. Ms Aybar also underlined that the results of the local elections showed a much wider political diversity than the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council on 25 January 2006. The Standing Committee also heard the statements of Jean-Claude Frécon (France, SOC), who headed the observation mission for the second phase of elections, and Claude Nicolet, President of the decentralised cooperation network for Palestine. The Standing Committee expressed its regret that the President and the Executive Director of the Association of Palestinian Local Authorities, which has an observer status with the Congress, were not able to come to the meeting due to travel restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities after the recent events.