The newly formed emergency government for the Palestinians has been sworn in. Abbas has declared the Hamas militia and indeed the Hamas party to be illegal. This has major implications for the upcoming elections –more about that further down. The new cabinet is going to be led by Salam Fayyad and he is also going to serve as their Finance minister.

So who is Salam Fayyad? Well, he is certainly better news for us than who was in there before. Fayyad is highly respected here in Israel and he has close ties with the Bush administration and the U.S. in general. He studied at the University of Texas at Austin and received his doctorate in economics there. Then he worked in St. Louis, Missouri for the Federal Reserve Bank. He lived in the U.S. for slightly more than 20 years. He was the head honcho at the World Bank for many years. Back when Hamas was disastrously elected, he was offered the post of Prime Minister for the Palestinian Authority government but conditioned his acceptance of it on Hamas recognizing Israel –and when they refused, he declined the post. So not just a man of principle but also one who is good with ye olde economics and that is certainly something that must be good for not only the Palestinians but also for us.

Now this outlawing of Hamas. Verrrrry interesting and, of course, the implications of this for the new elections they are going to hold is major. An outlawed and illegal party cannot run for election. Period. Abbas has just killed Hamas as a political entity.

Now if we look at the breakdown of the voting from the last election (thank you Ramzi for the reminder of the figures) we see the following:

Proportionally, Hamas received 44,45% of the votes while Fatah Received 41,43%

As everyone remembers, the election was quite close. Where did those other votes go, the ones that did not go to Hamas or to Fatah? Well, those non-direct Fatah voters basically pulled a Nader on Fatah:

Al Badeel ( quite close to fatah) : 2,92 %
Independent palestine ( close to fatah too) : 2,72 %
Third Way : 2,41 % ( Close to fatah as well)
Freedom and independence : 0,44%
Wa’ad ( National coalition for justice and democracy ) : 0,18 %
The Alternative : 2,67%

Hamas won big in Gaza which was critical as Gaza contributes 24 out of the 66 seats in the cabinet. Or well, it did. Now, who knows.

But with Hamas officially outlawed, whether Gazans are allowed to vote or not, basically the only parties on the table for a new election are Fatah and “almost” Fatah parties.big miosotis black titshairy girls litleford handjob patriciababes asian piercedpissing lespenand ass bros tits bangfucking girls underagesquirt cum in moms mouth Map