Poll: 36% of Palestinian youth will shun local elections

A recent poll showed a decline in the percentage of Palestinian youth who will participate in the local elections scheduled in the occupied West Bank on 13 May.

The Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD), which conducted the survey, said: “There are worrying signs of a low percentage of young people who will vote.”

As many as 53 per cent of West Bank youth said they will participate in local elections falling from the 65 per cent recorded in the previous elections, which may reflect the general atmosphere ahead of the elections.

Read: PFLP suspends participation in Palestinian elections

According to the poll, 36 per cent of Palestinian youth in the West Bank said they will not vote in the upcoming elections, while 12 per cent have yet to decide whether or not to participate in the electoral process.

The results show that 75 per cent of all young people surveyed find employment as their primary priority before health, social and educational issues.

AWRAD director, Nader Saeed, said the young people’s reluctance to participate in the local elections “indicates the public’s state of apathy towards the upcoming elections”.

Saeed told Quds Press on Wednesday that Hamas and the Popular Front’s boycott of the elections and the absence of competition will affect voter participation. Voters may however be encouraged to take part in the elections once the campaigns begin and the election date nears.

Unemployment, poverty, and the fragile economic policies in the West Bank and Gaza, combined with the lack of solutions to them, affect young people’s priorities.

“Polls conducted by research centres are based on science which has a margin of error, therefore it is important to read them as meaningful indicators rather than decisive final figures.”

AWRAD polled a sample of 315 18-35-year-old men and women from the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip on 8 March.