PALESTINE - Dec 23 - First Municipal Polls Since 1976.

Palestinians cast their votes for local councils in 26 towns and villages of the West Bank, opening an election season that officials say will underline the PA's commitment to democracy. It was the first election in the PA in the eight years since the late Yassir Arafat was overwhelmingly chosen as its president, and the first at which Palestinians have had an opportunity to elect municipal representatives since 1976. "We need democracy and this is just the beginning", said Amjad Jaber, official scrutineer at a polling station in a Jericho high school where voters were choosing a town council of 15 from a 51-strong candidate list. He said Dec 23 poll would be a test-run for presidential elections throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip in January to choose a successor to Arafat as president of the PA. The virtually unchallenged front-runner is Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the PLO. Parliamentary elections, considered by reformists to be even more vital than the presidential poll, will take place later next year. Arafat agreed to municipal elections some months before his death in November. In Jericho, an oasis town in the Jordan valley surrounded by Israeli-controlled territory, voters' concerns appeared to be principally domestic. Those questioned in the polling queues said they hoped an elected council would build a sewage system and rehabilitate the road network in what was, until the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, a big tourist destination. In the first stage of municipal polls, 140,000 voters were choosing from among more than 800 candidates, about one in six of them women. Palestinian election law guarantees that 16% of seats will go to women candidates. "There is a sense of excitement among women that at last they will have someone to represent them", said Maysoon Barahime, a woman candidate of the Jericho Bloc for All. There were no party lists but many candidates were from the lower ranks of Abbas' ruling Fatah party. Candidates associated with Hamas, an Islamic group that is boycotting January's presidential vote, were standing for the first time in elections in the PA. Electoral officials protested against Israel's recent arrest of four Islamist candidates and a representative of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian. Ahmad Qurei, PA PM, voting in his hometown of Abu Dis near Jerusalem, said: This is the first step towards establishment of a Palestinian state. This is the start of the democratic process". Official results of the election, which was monitored by foreign observers, were due to be declared on Dec 24.