Osama Sa’d, Chairman of the Fatwa and Legislation Department in the Gaza Strip, told ‘Hadith Al-Youm’ (Today’s Talk) program on local Shehab Agency that the Central Committee of Elections rejected most of the requests of the local societies and commissions to monitor the elections without providing legal reasons or persuasive arguments.

He added that such decision restricts popular monitoring of the elections, and that the Committee should allow all societies, media outlets and parties that wish to monitor to do so. He pointed to how the Committee prioritized the requests of the EU and some international institutions but should have made it available to the local ones.

Sa’d also said that the Committee’s duties are to make the protocols for the monitors but not to prevent them from monitoring. If the Committee insists, the decision will be pleaded against in the court of elections.