The Bush administration is spending foreign aid money to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas.

The approximately $2 million program is being led by a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development. But no U.S. government logos appear with the projects or events being undertaken as part of the campaign, which bears no evidence of U.S. involvement and does not fall within the definitions of traditional development work.

The plan's $2 million budget, although a tiny fraction of USAID's work here, is likely more than what any Palestinian party will have spent by election day. A media consultant for Hamas said the organization would likely spend less than $1 million on its campaign.

Elements of the U.S.-funded program include a street-cleaning campaign, distributing free food and water to Palestinians at border crossings, donating computers to community centers and sponsoring a national youth soccer tournament. U.S. officials are coordinating the program through Rafiq Husseini, chief of staff to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and leader of Fatah.

In recent days, Arabic-language papers have been filled with U.S.-funded advertisements announcing the events in the name of the Palestinian Authority, which the public closely identifies with Fatah. Some of the events, such as a U.S.-financed tree-planting ceremony here in Ramallah that Abbas attended last week, have resembled Fatah rallies, with participants wearing the trademark black-and-white kaffiyehs emblazoned with the party logo, walls plastered with Fatah candidates' posters, and banks of TV cameras invited to record the event.

Actually, of course, I'm playing with words above. That money isn't stopping the election from being "free," just stopping it from being "fair." How about the "free" part?

There are about 115,000 East Jerusalem residents who are eligible to vote.

Under a deal [Ed. note: "deal" my eye. "Israeli diktat" would be more accurate, I'm sure] between the two sides, just 5.5% will be allowed to cast their ballot in East Jerusalem.

Just 6,300 residents will be allowed to vote in the city - the remainder, an estimated 109,000 - will have to travel outside the city boundaries to vote.

The 6,300 lucky ones who don't have to pass through the checkpoints get to vote under the watchful eye of Israelis:

Voters who are chosen will then go to one of six post offices in the city. There a post office official [Ed. note: an Israeli] will hand them a ballot paper. There is no polling booth. The completed ballot paper is placed in a box, and later sent to Palestinian election officials for the votes to be counted.

The rest? They get to travel outside the city, passing through checkpoints which Israel promises will be "eased." Which means there will only be a one-hour wait, down from the usual two or three. Even the EU monitor for the elections has denounced the system as not free and fair.

Of course, even if they got to freely cast their ballots, which they don't, they haven't had the freedom to actually hear from the candidates. The fact that Hamas candidates aren't allowed to campaign (and have been arrested for trying to do so) in East Jerusalem is well-publicized. But actually, they are only one of at least four parties whose candidates have either been banned, or just arrested.

Spreading "democracy," one "free and fair" election at a time.

Update: And I completely forgot about this aspect of those "free" elections, since it's such a completely normal aspect of elections in countries under the gun (literal or figurative) of the United States: The United States and the European Union have threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas is granted a presence in the Palestinian Cabinet.