Democratic and systematic elections were held for the Birzeit student council.

Students were voting in a proportional system where all political factions that obtained the specified number of votes were able to become part of the fifty - one seat council.

Eight blocs participated in the latest election: Islamic bloc(supporters of Hamas), Nationalist Democratic bloc(supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine... PFLP), Jerusalem bloc (supporters of Feda ) , the Union of Progressive Students bloc (supporters of the Palestinian People's Party -- PPP), Progress and Democracy bloc (supporters of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine ...DFLP), Independent bloc (supporters of Feda), Students' Rights bloc(independents), and Nadir Christo (independent).

Students' Rights bloc (independents), and Nadir Christo (independent).

The official registry noted 2397 students participating in the elections, where we registered 2394. This means that the participation rate was approximately 85.%.

This type of polling is used in societies that conduct elections. This poll was conducted on the actual day of the elections, immediately outside the polling place. Fieldworkers counted the voters and systematically chose a sample from among them . Respondents were assured of the confidentiality of the questionnaire in order to build trust and remove fear of the process.

The sampling system enabled us to interview 399 students. This meant that we interviewed the sixth student to leave the hall, then the 12th , 18th, and so on. Therefore, every students in the sample represented six students in the actual elections.

Level			GPA
New Student* Old Student**		54.0% 46.0%	60-70 71-81 82-92	08.0% 77.0% 15.0%
Gender			College
Male Female	68.0% 32.0%		Science Arts Business	13.0% 30.0% 24.0%
Place of Residence		Place of Family Residence
City Town/Village Refugee Camp	42.0% 49.0% 09.0%	W. Bank North (Nablus, Tulkarm, Jenin ) W. Bank middle (Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem) W. Bank South (Hebron) Gaza Strip			22.0% 61.0% 07.0% 10.0%

* Detined as students beginning their studies at or after fall 1993
** Defined as students beginning their before Fall 1993

The poll results conformed with the official results, as shown in Table 2, where we found that the Jerusalem bloc received 21 seats, the Islamic bloc 18 seats, the Nationalist bloc 8 seats , the Union bloc 3 seats , and the Progress bloc 1 seat, with regard to the number of votes , the rate of error was within one vote in some cases, as was the case with the Jerusalem bloc where we anticipated 942 votes and they received 943 votes. The deference was larger in the case of the Islamic bloc, the nationalist bloc, and the small blocs . The small percentage of error could be due to the size of some of the blocs . The small percentage of error could be due to the size of some of the bloc, and the small blocs . The difference was larger in the case of the Islamic bloc , the nationalist bloc, and the small blocs. The small percentage of error could be due to the size of some of the blocs which led to a sample too small to confirm . Also , some students refused or were not able to complete the questionnaire (in full or in part ) sufficiently for us to analyze them. There were 17 such students in the sample , of whom we credited 7 to the Islamic bloc (equal to 42 votes), since there were indications of support for it, such students in the sample , of whom we credited 7 to the Islamic bloc symbol, or answering enough questions in such a way as to be consistent with the bloc supporters' profile.

Table 2
Official and CPRS Results for the Student Council Elections at Birzeit May 24, 1995:A Comparative View

Bloc	CPRS			Official
	Votes #	Support%	Seats #	Votes #	Support %	Seats #
Jerusalem	942	40.25%	21	943	40.03%	21
Islamic	780*	33.33%	18	811	34.42%	18
National Democratic	342	14.61%	8	358	15.20%	8
Progressive Student Union	126	05.38%	3	128	5.430%	3
Progress and Democracy	69	03.0%	1	65	2.250%	1
Independence	36	01.54%	--	16	00.67%	--
Nadir Christo	24	01.1%	--	23	01.00%	--
Students' Rights	22	01.1%	--	12	00.50%	--
Total	2341**	100.0%	51	2356***	100.0%	51

* includes the 42 votes credited to the Islamic bloc from the 7 incomplete forms in which there was some indication of supports for the bloc.
** Does not include the missing values-- the number of students who did not complete the form sufficiently or who refused to participate in the poll.
*** Does not include the number of students who participated in the elections but left ballots incomplete.

Islamic bloc

Votes for the Islamic bloc came from new students(37%) than old students(28%) and also from students with GPAs in the range of 60-70 and 82-92, and not to a large extent from students in the middle GPA range . The bloc received votes from 48% of the science students and 40% of the engineering students, compared with 22% of the arts students and 26% of the business students. Also a larger percentage of the votes came from the villages and cities , and not from the camps.Also Hebron gave the bloc the highest percentage of votes compared with the other areas. Contrary to expectations, the students from the Gaza Strip did not give the bloc more than 24% of their votes. The Islamic bloc received 34% of the men's votes and 28% of the women's votes. The largest percentage of support came from those students from families whose income does not exceed 300 Jordanian dinners(JD) a month , where 39% students from this group voted for the Islamic bloc , compared with 32% of the students with a family income of over 900 JD a month . No Christian students voted for this bloc.

Nationalist Democratic Bloc

Support for this bloc came from old students(18%) more than new students (11%) Support for this bloc increases with GPA . Support came from 21% of the refugee camp students , 16% of the city students, and 14% of the village students. Also students from the middle of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip supported this bloc more than others. Votes for this bloc came from women (18%) more than men (14%) with regard to family income , this bloc received the most support from those whose monthly family income was at least 900 JD (20%) compared with 14% of those whose monthly family income is less than 300 JD . This bloc received the highest percentage of support from Christian students where 40% voted for it, compared with 306% of the Muslim students.

Jerusalem bloc

Votes for this bloc came to a large extent from old students(43) compared with new students (39%) Also, support for this bloc came more from the students with a GPA in the range of 71 -81 and did not exceed 27% from the rest of the students. A total of 49% of the arts students and 44% of the business students vfor the bloc compared with 39% of the students without a major and 35% of the engineering students . This bloc received its least support form the science students where it reached 30% of the votes, 18% less than the Islamic bloc . Half of the camp students voted for this bloc, compared with 41% of the city students and 38% of the village students. The highest support for this bloc came from the Gaza Strip at 56% , and support for it was also widespread throughout the other areas (at an average of 40%) . Men voted for this bloc (42% more than women (39%) . This bloc received the largest support from among those whose monthly income was between 600 and 900 JD(53%) the bloc received 37% of the Christian vote and 42% of the Muslim vote .

We are unable to provide analysis of the blocs that did not receive any seats as the number of their supporters in the sample is too small.

Union bloc

New students (6.8%) voted for the Union bloc more than old students(4.4%) Voters were spread throughout the various GPA ranges. Business, science, and engineering students voted for the bloc more than arts students. Most of the supporters for this bloc came from the city (6.6%) followed by the villages (5.2%) and the camps (2.9%) . The highest percentage of support for this proup came from the north(8%) and middle (6.2%) of the West Bank compared with 4.3% of the south of the West Bank and almost nothing from the Gaza Strip. Support was much higher among women (8.3%) than among men(4.2%) . The bloc was headed by a female student. We find that there is a direct relationship between family income and support for this bloc, where it received 3.3% of the votes from students with a monthly family incomes of more than 900 JD Support for the bloc was high among Christians at 19% compared with 3.6% of the Muslim students.

Progress bloc

This bloc received 3.4% of the votes from old students and 2.9% of the votes from new students. The highest percentage of votes came from the students in the 60-70 GPA range.

There was not a great difference among the various colleges, with the exception of students without majors , where the bloc did not get a single vote. Support for the bloc came from villages (4%) more than from camps (2.9%) and cities (2.6%) The bloc got no votes from students from the south of the West Bank in the sample . Men (3.5%) voted for the bloc more than women (2.5%) . Support for the bloc came from students with monthly family incomes of less than 600 JD and the bloc received no support from Christian students.

The poll showed that what concerns students the most are student issues , since the highest percentage mentioned that their vote for bloc depended that bloc's student agenda. The second criteria was the political faction that the bloc supported . This was followed by the political program of the bloc and its position conerning the Declaration of Principles . The students were less concerned with the persons listed as candidates. Criteria of the least concern were regional distribution of candidates and the representation of women in the bloc. (See Table were regional distribution of candidates and the representation of women in the bloc. (See Table 3).

Table 3
Extent of Importance of the Given Factors when Choosing Bloc

	Important %	Somewhat Important %	Not Important %
Your support for the political faction that the bloc supports	71.7	23.5	04.8
Bloc's student agenda	79.4	17.5	03.1
Bloc's political agenda	64.0	25.8	09.8
Bloc's position concerning DoP	64.0	24.8	11.2
Your liking for the individual candidates of the bloc	43.9	29.7	27.4
Bloc's concern with the representation of women	36.8	36.8	26.4
Bloc's representation of all geographic regions	37.6	31.4	31.0

Concern with students issues was spread among all blocs , with the highest concern for this topic among supporters of the Nationalist bloc. With regard to political faction support, a large percentage of the supporters of the Nationalist bloc considered this an important factor , followed by supporters of the Progress bloc, the Islamic bloc , and the Jerusalem bloc. The least support for political faction support was among supporters of the Union bloc. A large percentage of supporters of the Islamic bloc, the Nationalist bloc, and the Progress bloc (opposition groups) considered the bloc's position on the Declaration of Principles important when choosing their bloc. Most blocs did not give great importance to the individual candidates . Least concerned with this criterion were the supporters of the Nationalist and Progress blocs. With regard to the representation of women , it was the most important to the supporters of the Union bloc, followed by the Nationalist bloc. The least support for this criterion comes from the Islamic and the Jerusalem blocs . Supporters of the Islamic bloc were the less concerned than others about the geographical ties of the candidates in the bloc, while the supporters of the Jerusalem and Nationalist blocs were more concerned than others about this criterion.

Approximately one third of the respondents describe themselves as religious, and 43% said that they were somewhat religious, while the remaining quarter declared themselves to be not religious. Most students described themselves as active or somewhat active in political life .No higher than 20% declared themselves Arab nationalist, compared with 31% who declared themselves somewhat Arab nationalist . Approximately half said that the description did not apply to them . No more than 17% described themselves as leftist and less than 15% described themselves as secular. Therefore, it seems that the most important self- description criteria for Birzeit students is religiosity and political activism (See Table 4).

Table 4
Self - Descriptions of Birzeit University Students

	Applicable %	Applicable to a Certain Extent %	Not Applicable
Religious	31.2	43.1	25.7
Secular	14.7	22.8	62.5
Arab nationalist	20.3	31.0	48.7
Leftist	16.9	10.2	72.9
Active in political life	27.5	43.3	29.2

Among those who voted for the Islamic bloc , 60% described themselves as religious and 36% described themselves as somewhat religious, Also, 23% of the Jerusalem bloc supporters declared themselves religious and 53% declared themselves somewhat religious, a total of 45% of the supporters of the Jerusalem bloc said that they were not secular , along with 56% of the Nationalist bloc supporters and 35% of the Union bloc supporters. Among the supporters of the Islamic bloc, 26% said that they were Arab nationalist or somewhat so, compared with 63% of the Jerusalem bloc supporters , 55% of the Union bloc supporters and 72% of the Nationals bloc supporters . A total of 57% of the supporters of the Progress Bloc and 48% of the supporters of the Union bloc. With regard to the degree of political activism, 58% of the supporters of the Progress bloc described themselves as active , along with 33% of the supporters of the Nationalist bloc, 30% of the supporters of the Jerusalem bloc, 24% of the supporter of the Islamic bloc, and 10% of the supporters of the Union bloc.