If the election for Palestinian Authority president were to be held between just two candidates, current PA President Mahmoud Abbas would be trounced with just 38% of the vote against 54% for Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political bureau, according to the Ramallah-Palestinian Center of Policy and Survey Research (PSR).
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With that, the voter turnout for such an election would only be 51%, according to those questioned in the survey. Additionally, Haniyeh's popularity compared to that of Abbas appears to be waning. Three months ago, the gap between the two was 26% (58% to 35%), compared to the narrower 16% gap today.
Furthermore, in the areas controlled by the PA in Judea and Samaria, the gap between those two candidates stands at just 6%, as opposed to the Gaza Strip, where the gap widens considerably to 27%.
In a hypothetical scenario in which Marwan Barghouti (the convicted terrorist mastermind serving several life sentences in Israeli prison) was the candidate against Haniyeh, voter turnout would increase to 64%. In such a scenario, which would obviously require Israeli consent, Barghouti would win with 59% of the vote over Haniyeh's 37%.
If parliamentary elections were to be held today, including all Palestinian factions that ran in the 2006 election, 64% of those questioned said they would participate. Among those individuals, 36% said they'd vote for Hamas while 42% said they would vote for Fatah. This marks a reversal of the recent trend, as three months ago Hamas received 38% of the votes against Fatah's 35%.
Asked which movement is most worthy of representing the Palestinians, a majority of 36% said both Hamas and Fatah were unworthy.
The poll was conducted between March 16-20 in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip with a total sample size of 1,200 adults interviewed face to face in 120 randomly selected locations. The margin of error is +/-3%.
As a reminder, Abbas last year decided to postpone the Palestinian parliamentary elections, claiming Israel was prohibiting them from taking place in east Jerusalem.
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