Former President Carter said Thursday the Palestinian elections were ‘completely honest, completely fair, completely safe and without violence.’
Carter, who led an international observer team from the National Democratic Institute, also said he hoped that the Hamas Islamic group would act responsibly now that it appears to have been elected to power in Palestinian elections.
‘My hope is that as Hamas assumes a major role in the next government, whatever that might be, it will take a position on international standards of responsibility,’ he told a news conference in Jerusalem. Carter helped broker a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1978.
Official results were expected later Thursday, but officials from both the ruling Fatah Party and Hamas said that Hamas had won most of the 132-seats in the legislative council. Hamas has carried out numerous deadly suicide attacks in Israel, whose existence it does not recognize.
A day after the elections, there were no major allegations of fraud from either side.