This time... I will not elect someone who asks for my vote, but rather someone who answers about our future

Writer: Dr. Asaad Al-Awawi

A friend asked me: If the elections were held, who would you vote for?

I thought a little, and said to myself: The question for me is no longer just: Who do I know? Who is in my family? Who is my faction?

The most important question is: What will this candidate offer to the Palestinian person?

I want to elect someone who understands that politics is not slogans and speeches, but rather people's daily lives, their dignity, and the future of their children.

I want a country that provides job opportunities for young people, and gives them a real opportunity to build their future here. A state that encourages small projects, innovation, and entrepreneurship, and links education to the labor market, instead of young people spending years waiting for a job or thinking about emigrating.

I want a Palestinian education that keeps pace with technological development and prepares our children for a new, rapidly changing world. An education that opens the doors of science, artificial intelligence, digital skills, and languages ​​to them, and is not limited to granting them a certificate.

I want a health care system that respects the human being, so that the citizen receives treatment and care without the disease turning into a financial crisis that threatens his family.

And I want to remember the old people; Who spent their lives building their families and communities. They have the right to live old age in dignity, with health and social care, income, and services that preserve their status.

But all these rights require something basic: a strong state with its institutions, not its people.

A state that exercises oversight over the performance of its institutions and officials, knows where people’s money goes, enforces transparency, confronts corruption without selectivity, holds accountable those who misuse power or public money, and rewards those who succeed and serve the people efficiently and with integrity.

I want a country where the question is not: “Who is behind you?” So you get your rights.

I want a country where the question is: “What right do you have?” Then you get it by law.

Therefore, censorship is not hostility towards the official, and accountability is not revenge against anyone. On the contrary, accountability is what protects the honest official before it protects the citizen.

We want institutions in which the official knows that he is entrusted with public money, that his performance can be evaluated and reviewed, and that the position is a temporary responsibility and not permanent ownership.

When we go to the ballot box, I think we have to ask every list and candidate:

What will you do? How will we hold you accountable if you don't?

How many job opportunities will you provide?

How will you develop education?

How will you keep up with technology?

How will you protect citizen health?

How will you ensure dignified aging for the elderly?

How will you make oversight, accountability, and transparency a constant part of the state’s work?

This, to me, is not a minor detail.

This is the country I want to live in.

I don't want to just elect someone.

I want to elect a state project.

A country in which the young person lives with opportunity, the child with modern education, the sick with health care, the elderly with dignity, the citizen with protected rights, and the official under supervision and accountability.

A state in which the citizen is not afraid of authority, and where the authority is not afraid of censorship.

* Academic and political researcher