The 13th Student Debate Forum at Birzeit University

On Thursday 05/12/2013, the Student Debate Forum in coordination with the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute for International Studies and the Central Elections Committee conducted the 13th debate of its serial debates under the title of “The Central Elections Committee Independent it its work?”

The debate revolved around a discussion between two teams, the first team is supportive of the idea of an independent Central Elections Committee. This team is represented by Media Director at the Committee, Mr. Farid Tamallah. The opposing team consisted of two Master’s students at Birzeit University Ms. Reem Al-Sharif and Ms. Najwa Quraan.

The proponent team discussed the independence of the Central Elections Committee which springs from the elections law that states that the Committee is a body with a considerable personality that enjoys administrative and financial independence. Every newly-appointed employee signs a pledge to abide by which to “work with neutrality, integrity and transparency and to never favor any candidate or political party on the expense of another,” in addition to not commit any act that would harm the integrity of the electoral process or the neutrality of the Elections Committee and its independence.

Tamallah added: “the Central Elections Committee has a distinguishable high-level performance on every level of the elections and voting process as certified by local and international inspectors as well as media representatives; as the Committee allowed everyone the freedom of performing their tasks and information transparency.”

The opponent team introduced the concept of independency based on two issues: the independency of its members and its financial independency. This team stated that the Committee cannot be independent while the Secretary General occupies a governmental position and heads the Palestinian government as Prime Minister. Hence this is illegal and it affects the independency of the Committee and its neutrality. The opposing team added: “the independency of the Committee cannot be discussed while this committee receives its funding from outsider parties that hold agenda which does not comply with the Palestinian interests.”

At the end of the debate and after listening to questions and inputs from the audience, the supporting team represented by Mr. Farid Tamallah got 34.8% of votes in comparison to 65.2% for the opponent team represented by students Reem Al-Sharif and Najwa Quraan, knowing that the debate forum uses a 50-50 result division between the audience and the jury to decide on the winner. The supporting team got 43.5% from the jury votes and 25.5% from the audience, while the opponent team got 56.6% from the jury and 74.5% from the audience.

The 13th debate was lead by the Head of the Social and Behavioral Science Department Dr. Abaher Al-Saqa. The jury consisted of faculty member at the Philosophy and Cultural Studies Department Dr. Tawfiq Duwani, Head of the English Language Department Dr. Wael Abdeen and faculty member at the Languages and Translation Department Professor Rajaa Hamayel.

It is worth mentioning that the Debate Forum was established in 2008 by a group of students at Birzeit University with the aim to enrich the democratic atmosphere and respect for diversity at educational institutions and society.