This blog has received one citation that I know of in the published literature, on p. 1 of Rein Taagepera’s, Predicting Party Sizes (Oxford, 2007).

Bethlehem – Ma’an – The Palestine Liberation Organisation central council closed its meetings on Thursday evening, calling for amendments to the election laws. In particular, the council called for the establishment of a proportional electoral system rather than a district-based system.

PART OF the post-election discussions concentrated on the election law, in which 50% were elected proportionally and 50% from local districts. A polling expert speaking at the Ramallah conference said that a number of Fatah candidates should be given a medal by Hamas for rejecting Mahmoud Abbas’s desire for a 100% proportional representation system. If that was the law of the elections Hamas might have gotten a few more seats than Fatah, but overall Fatah and its independent and left-wing coalition partners could easily have formed a majority government.

A change in the election format would have resolved a major problem for Fatah. Having so many Fatah candidates run as independents (because they were not chosen to be on the official roster) meant that thousands of votes for the district seats were wasted. In Jerusalem, Bilal Natashe, a Fatah leader, told me that the lost votes amounted to a total of 37,000 – more than enough to have resulted in all Fatah candidates to win. In Bethlehem Fatah received more votes on the national lists, but still lost all their district seats except those earmarked as part of the Christian quota. . .

In Gaza the single seat allotted for the Christian citizens didn’t go to the Fatah candidate, but to an independent supported by Hamas.

Had the entire election been run under the list system, Hamas would have won 59 seats to Fatah’s 55. It would have had to form a coalition with presumably more moderate parties and independent candidates.