We Will Defeat Corruption and the Corrupt

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Don’t tell me you won’t register to vote. How will you defeat corruption while sitting at home, lamenting your fate and beating your cheek in despair? Go now to the voter registration center, determined to inflict a crushing defeat on corruption and the corrupt. These corrupt people will remain perched atop this people’s blessings, trading on its sacrifices, unless we ourselves decide to lift them off our backs, hold them to account, and wrest our own money back out of their bellies. Elections are one of the means that can bring us to that goal.

Perhaps no elections will actually be held, but it would be a mistake not to take precautions and prepare for an electoral battle that may yet come.

There is a great coalition on its way to emerging: the Islamic-Arab Gathering, which brings together nationalists, Islamists, and pan-Arabists with the aim of contesting the elections. It brings together a number of factions, and independents occupy a wide space within its membership. We will contest the elections with a presidential candidate and with candidates for the Legislative Council in every governorate of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We will be a fully integrated team, working diligently to steer the course of Palestinian affairs according to new ethical principles, clear national foundations, and political rules that do not squander Palestinian rights.

Palestine needs every good effort, the very least of which is registering for the elections and taking part in them. The historical conditions have now ripened for bringing about fundamental change on the Palestinian scene. With our votes, we can turn things around, setting them right within their true moral and historical logic.

Registering for the elections is a religious, moral, national, and human responsibility.

So do not stand by as a mere spectator.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “سنهزم الفساد والفاسدين” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.