A seminar was held on the local municipal and legislative elections. The meeting was organized by the Civic Forum and hosted by Dr. Hasan Al-Araj, Ministry of Local Government Affairs; Ghassan Al-Shaka’a, Member of the Executive Committee of the PLO; Majida Al-Masri, Member of the Central Committee of the Democratic Front; Dr. Muhammad Ghazal, Islamic Movement and Waddah Al-Khateeb, Coordinator of the Nablus Electoral Bureau; the seminar was chaired by Mr. Sami Kilani, Director of the Community Service Center.

The seminar began by a speech given by Mr. Rafi Draghmeh, Head of the Public Relations Department, who emphasized the importance of such meetings between people and political personalities and thanked the Civic Forum for its initiative. Dr. Araj then gave statistics showing an 80% increase in participation in local elections held until now in the different Palestinian cities and towns. Mr. Khateeb talked about the facilities made by the central committee to ease the electoral process; including the re-opening of registration centers for people who hadn’t previously registered and he assured that this would be the only record to be used in the polling stations.