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Hamas popularity on the rise
17/03/2008 17:25 - (SA)
Ramallah - The popularity of Hamas has risen in recent months since the Gaza Strip's border breach with Egypt, deadly Israeli strikes and the lack of progress in renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to an opinion poll released on Monday.
"A major shift in Hamas's favour occurred during the last three months with about 10% of the population shifting their attitudes and perceptions," said the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research in a statement accompanying the results.
The same number of people would vote for moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as for senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in any presidential election and the Islamists would get more votes than Fatah in legislative polls, it said.
Abbas, who succeeded legendary leader Yasser Arafat at the head of the Palestinian Authority in January 2005, would receive 46% of votes, compared with 47% for Haniya.
It is the first poll in which an Islamist candidate has garnered more support than the secular leader.
Haniya served as prime minister in the Hamas-led unity government that Abbas fired in June 2007 after the Islamists routed his forces in the Gaza Strip following a week of deadly clashes.
The Hamas leader would not fare as well against Marwan Barghuti, the popular West Bank leader of Abbas's Fatah party and architect of the 2000 uprising who is imprisoned by Israel for his involvement in suicide attacks.
Barghuti would receive 57% of the vote, while Haniya would get 38%, the poll said.
In legislative elections, Hamas would receive 42% of the vote, compared with 35% for Fatah - a near mirror reversal of the figures from a December poll, in which 31% would have voted for Hamas and 49% for Fatah.
The rise in Hamas's popularity is partly due to the recent breach of Gaza's border with Egypt and the high number of Palestinian casualties in Israeli strikes on the coastal strip, the poll said.
Abbas meanwhile has been hurt by the lack of an improvement in Palestinians' daily lives amid the renewed peace talks with Israelis, it said.
"These developments managed to present Hamas as successful in breaking the siege (on Gaza) and as a victim of Israeli attacks," it said.
"These also presented Palestinian president Abbas and his Fatah faction as impotent, unable to change the bitter reality in the West Bank or ending Israeli occupation through diplomacy," it said.
Fifty-six percent of those questioned said they were "unsatisfied" with Abbas, compared with 41% who said they were satisfied.
The survey questioned 1 270 people in the West Bank and Gaza between March 13 and 15 and had a 3% margin of error.
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