The registered independent and coalition lists won the presidency of 8 municipal councils from the West Bank cities out of 11 while the Fatah movement, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, got only 3.

“The independent lists got 64.4% and the partisans got 35.6% of the votes in the second phase of the local elections in the West Bank,” said Hanna Nasser, the head of the Central Elections Committee.

Shadi Othman, the spokesman for the European Union mission in Palestine, said today that the high turnout in the local elections in the West Bank is evidence of the desire of Palestinian people to participate in decision-making.

Palestine Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which boycotted the first phase of the elections, is not taking part in the municipal elections held on Saturday. (ILKHA)