Some 400,000 Palestinians vote in rare municipal elections

By JACK JEFFERY

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinians are finally taking part in municipal elections across the occupied West Bank following months of simmering anger towards their government’s cancellation of parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year. Some 400,000 Palestinians are eligible to vote in the election, where they will select representatives for 154 village councils. The increasingly unpopular president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, confined Saturday’s election to rural municipalities, postponing voting in the West Bank’s major cities. The municipal elections are also being boycotted by the militant group Hamas, who have long called for legislative elections.