As exit polls provided initial indications of Hamas’s election victory on 26 January, a commentator from the IRNA remarked, ‘When Yasser Arafat died last year, he left a very noticeable legacy: widespread corruption and mismanagement in the government that he led’. This did not go unnoticed: in a survey of Palestinians, The Palestinian Chronicle found that “24 percent believe corruption and lack of reforms is the serious problem confronting the Palestinians today”.

The Christian Science Monitor referred to the result as ‘a sweeping mandate to root out public vice’, reflecting public frustration with Fatah in a territory that has received over US$ 5 billion from foreign investors and donors in the past five years, yet squanders an estimated US$ 200 million a year through maladministration and dodgy dealings. When The Australian published the results of the first post-election poll, it backed up the media consensus that most of those (43 percent) who voted for Hamas did so hoping for an end to corruption.

Following the election win, the key issue for the new government appears to be securing future aid flows as the Palestinian Authority faces financial pressure from Israeli sanctions. Nonetheless, AMIN reports that Hamas has been focusing its attention on domestic issues, such as “ending lawlessness, ensuring greater respect for the rule of law, fighting corruption, and reforming Palestinian governance”. Further, the Jerusalem Post and the Christian Science Monitor reported that the Palestinian Attorney General had begun post-election investigations into embezzlement and graft, indicating a positive start to addressing corruption.

The Hamas victory in Palestine not only has political repercussions within the Middle East; it may have direct corruption-related repercussions in neighbouring Arab counties, notably Jordan. The Boston Globe has reported that the Jordanian Islamic Action Front has been “boldly breaking with the gentlemen's rules of Jordanian politics, under which opposition parties never directly criticise the monarchy, nor point out government corruption”. This change of attitude has been attributed to the so-called “Hamas Effect” and their desire to change the status quo within the Palestine Authority.