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Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, the Secretary General of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Democracy and Global Dialogue “MIFTAH” and a member of AMAN, and Mr. Thomas Birringer, Konrad Adenauer Foundation Resident Representative in the Palestinian Territories, opened the conference.

Dr. Ashrawi affirmed in her opening that to guarantee the success of a comprehensive reform and to rebuild the Palestinian political system there is need from all individuals and institutions and in particular the political parties to establish laws and principles that regulate the relation between these parties and powers with the Palestinian Authority and its members.

Mr. Birringer addressed the audience by talking about the German experience in democracy and political parties giving the recent elections in Germany as an example. Mr. Birringer said for the elections and the political parties to work properly there should be a state that is able to enforce this law based on equal rights and obligations for all parties and there should be people in each political party who intend to practice democracy internally.

During the workshop, Dr. Azmi Shuabi, General Coordinator of AMAN, presented the drafted law which contains 32 articles, adding that the importance of the law comes from the fact that the best way to protect the parties is to establish a law, and the coming PLC elections need this law in order to be run in an environment of transparency.

Amar Duwake, the Executive Director of Central Elections Commission and Mr. Firas Yaghi, the Executive Director of the Local Election Commission, talked about the experience of the presidential elections and local elections. Both of them agreed that the existence of a political parties’ law will facilitate their work.

Aziz Kaid, the researcher who made the research on the political parties’ law, explained his results and focused on the articles in the proposed law that need further discussing. Mr. Abed Al-Rahman Abu Arafeh, the Director of the Arab Thought Forum, suggested establishing an Code of Ethics between the parties until the political parties’ law is established and ratified.

The conference was held on two sessions and during each session the audience participated vigorously in the discussion.