Articles
Municipal elections …”whose Turn Is It”!
- Details
- Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 October 2012 15:08
- Hits: 4868
Fadi Abu Sada- As soon as the Palestinian government set the date for the municipal elections, clans and families in Palestinian cities got into high gear and imparked on conducting meetings to set the names of those who will run in the local elections. Yes it is still the dominate culture in this country, the culture of clans, even political factions failed to overshadow it. So we continued to wait for the families to name their candidates and then to start the negotiations process among families and mutual visits as well as the completed electoral lists and so on.
Even though the “Arab Youth”, using the social media networks, such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, managed to change the regime in Egypt; but in Palestine we continue to look for candidates inside the families. What is more worse that all of this is that the target group of this system is those above their 50s, in other words ignoring the youth and the role they could play or their natural right to play this role to serve their communities.
The worst thing you can picture in this clan culture that dominates in Palestine is the issue of “whose Turn Is It?” This has made even the political factions bow down for this system and wait for clans to name their candidates thinking they have the right to do so, there for forcibly practicing this role and excluding change that may lead to better conditions in the country.
The problem does not lie in the clans or political groups, but in the way they together chose the lists of candidates for the municipal elections. Because they do not take into consideration for what comes after the elections, the work that is awaiting them after victory. The culture that is practiced and flowed is that every family must have a person in the municipality regardless of everything else, this have deprived many municipalities in towns and villages in Palestine to develop and be able to provide better services to its residents.
This way and culture must be changed forever, not to lose the sense of belonging to the family or political factions at all, but from the youth’s right to take their natural role in their communities without having to bow down to the culture of being shepherd around by the candidates of their clans or being looked at as they belong to political group that does not represent them.
The youth most overcome this nonsense practiced by the families and political groups that are trying to impede their progress and even accuse youth of being “separatists” or “conspiracy”. We must work to support all the youth lists in this elections, because the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and this is the first step.
The youth must most not take much notice of what this old clans and factions say about them, what we gain from this stand is we say to our families and factions that “ We Are Here” we have the right to run in the elections and take our natural right in the society, we had enough of being shepherd and now we chose the way.
