Saeed Naef, a fourteen year old candidate from Tulkarem seemed busy preparing to the polling process. His dark sweating skin was glowing under the burning sun. Despite his young age, he was curiously observing the voters turnout and waiting for the announcement of the results in "the candles" summer camp elections in Tulkramem.
Saeed didn’t expect to win before the announcement of the results. With an apparent confusion he said " I don’t know if I will be lucky today and gain the students trust or not". Saeed did his best to convince the students of his electoral platform. He promised to render better services for the camp and to organize educational contests and distribute gifts on the winners.
Saeed obtained twenty seven votes out of fifty one and won a leading seat in the camp. His happy supporters carried him on their shoulders around the camp. He set up a date to convene with the students of the camp to listen to their needs and discuss them with the campzzz*zs administration," as I promised you Izzz*zm welling to listen to each one of you, make your dreams come true and improve the services in the camp". In these words, Saeed addressed the campzzz*zs students.
On the other hand and in zzz*zMartyr Yasser Arafat " summer camp in Tulkarem, candidate Ahmad reviewed the counting protocol himself more than once to make sure that he did win a seat in the camp. His victory in the elections came to make up for his fatherzzz*z loss in obtaining a seat in the latest legislative elections. " my father didn’t win a seat in the legislative elections and I wanted to make up for his loss by winning the summer campzzz*zs elections" Ahmad told us.
Ahmad celebrated his victory with his father who supported him in this experience from the beginning. "I wanted my son to learn the elections education through this experience. I supported him in the hope that he may achieve what I couldn’t achieve".
In Qaliqilya "A wonderful world" summer camp, fifty three female students voted for fifteen candidates who competed over five seats. The campzzz*zs director, miss Rima Jaber, expressed her feelings about this experience by saying that" this experience is considered new to the students who are still illegible to vote. It enriched their elections education".
From observing the polling process in the camp, it was clear that the students were familiar with the polling procedures. We met the head of the camps elections committee, Rania Nasser who described the project aszzz*z a good opportunity for the students to learn about elections procedures". Rania looked serious while unsealing the ballot box and announcing the commencement of the polling process. "We were taught how to differentiate between valid and invalid ballots by the training we received by the CEC. The CEC illustrated all details pertaining to the polling and counting process". Rania said.
The camps students went through their first experience towards the democratic practices. They counted the votes and celebrated the victory. The polling process was conducted in a real atmosphere filled with competition. Some of the elections winners hope to be nominated in the future for a bigger position by which they can serve those who trusted them away from their "personal interests" as Yafa Assaf, one of the winners in " A wonderful world" camp elections said. Yafa also said that she hopes that this project may produce youth leaderships who will be able to carry out the responsibility in the future and provide the best for Palestine and the Palestinian people.
All phases of the project were conducted under the supervision of the CEC in all West Bank districts. The project aimed at enhancing the electoral concepts and applying them practically through conducting mock elections to elect youth leaderships for the summer camps. The CEC targeted students between 12-16 years old in order to prepare them for real elections in the future.