JERUSALEM, Jan. 21 -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Sunday listed several election irregularities following the conclusion of the first-ever Palestinian elections, but said overall the election process was fair. 'There was nothing that took place yesterday that subverts the basic principle that the will of the Palestinian voters was accurately expressed,' Carter told a news conference in East Jerusalem. The U.S. leader endorsed the election results, but expressed reservations about whether Yasser Arafat, who easily won the post of president, would lead his constituency down the road to a real democracy. 'I have high hopes it will take place, but it's not an automatic transfer of authority,' Carter said. 'The world will be watching...to see if there's a real democracy here, or if we have an authoritarian government with the (newly elected) council only a rubber stamp.' Carter led a 40-member, 11-nation delegation of observers that monitored Saturday's elections. His team visited more than 200 polling stations in all 16 electoral districts to monitor the fairness of polling and tabulation of results. Carter's presence at the vote culminated efforts he began almost 20 years ago to help mediate peace in the Middle East. As president, he played a major role in the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, which specified the need for Palestinian autonomy. Carter ticked-off a list of his main grievances concerning the election proceedings, problems focusing mainly on incidents that occurred in Israeli-run East Jerusalem. He cited the heavy presence of Israeli soldiers and police and its effect on voter turnout in the city as his first concern.
'There is no doubt in my mind that the Israeli police were an intimidating factor, deliberate or not, to many Palestinians particularly here is East Jerusalem,' Carter said. The fears of many Palestinians to vote were worsened by an 'unholy alliance' of right-wing Israelis and Arab opponents to peace, who tried to convince residents that Israeli authorities might take away local identification cards and revoke social benefits if they voted, Carter said. Israel captured the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The Jewish state subsequently annexed East Jerusalem and considers the city its undivided capital, a claim matched by the Palestinians. Arab residents of East Jerusalem enjoy resident benefits from Israel that other Palestinians do not. Carter said less than 30 percent of registered voters in East Jerusalem cast their ballots, whereas turnout in districts of the Gaza Strip reached 90 percent, and other West Bank areas averaged near 70 percent. Scarcity of polling stations was another reason for the wide gap in turnout, he said, noting Israel allowed only 4,500 out of 50,000 eligible voters to vote in East Jerusalem. The remainder had to leave the city to cast their ballots. 'There is no doubt that this was a difficult circumstance,' Carter said. He also expressed concern over two cases of irregularities in Gaza where polling stations were overwhelmed with voters and could not accommodate the throngs waiting to participate. 'I see the flourishing seeds of a real Palestinian civil society, and think it is conceivable that we will see a Palestinian state before the year 2000,' said Moroccan Prince Mouly ben Abdallah, a member of the Carter observer team. '(But) there is no legal framework and I am worried that Palestinian rights will not being guaranteed fast enough,' he said.
