Palestinians have a long way to go before embracing democracy:

The main Palestinian political group, Fatah, has halted its primary elections in Gaza after militants raided some polling stations and fired in the air. …

Gunmen also set fire to ballot boxes, saying the candidate lists in the second stage of primaries for January’s parliamentary poll were not complete.

The first action taken here is shooting and burning — not talking to the election commission.

Leading in these “polls” is Marwan Barghouti, serving 5 life sentences for killing 4 Israelis and one Greek monk.