Gaza’s Hamas leaders on 29 January authorised the Palestinian Elections Commission to begin voter registration as part of efforts to restart reconciliation. “We have agreed to start operations in the Gaza Strip and we will begin in Gaza and the West Bank,” Central Elections Commission chief Hanna Nasser said, after a meeting with Gaza’s Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.
Voter registration in Gaza, where rolls have not been updated since the last elections in 2006, is a key part of implementation of the reconciliation agreement. “We will meet with Hamas, Fatah and other movements to discuss the arrangements for registering voters and we hope to register them within a week to 10 days,” Nasser said, estimating the number of new voters in the West Bank and Gaza at around 650,000. The elections commission announced that it hoped to complete registration by 16 February.