Abbas wants to postpone elections in November
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas wants to postpone parliamentary elections until November, hoping to recapture some of the popular support his ruling Fatah party has lost, a spokesman for the Hamas militant group said today.
A source close to Abbas, who is in the US for talks with President George Bush, confirmed the Palestinian leader is looking to push back the July 17 vote by four months.
The delay could inflame tensions between Fatah and Hamas, already high over disputed results in a recent round of local elections. Hamas, which is running for the first time in legislative elections, has objected to a delay because it would give Abbas more time to try to score concrete achievements in his faltering reform and peacemaking agenda.
Mohammed Ghazal, the Hamas spokesman in the West Bank who reported Abbas’ intentions, said today the militant group continues to object to a postponement.
But with Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip to start in mid-August, Hamas might acquiesce to the election delay with little real resistance.
Fatah’s electoral standing has been hurt by a history of corruption and inefficiency during its exclusive rule of the Palestinian Authority during its 11-year existence. Hamas, which won one-third of the municipalities contested in local elections on May 4, is expected to make serious inroads into Fatah’s backing, possibly gaining a majority of the legislature.
Abbas’ postponement of the election has been long expected, even though his official position has been to support a July 17 vote. The Palestinian Election Commission flagged an official postponement on Monday when it said it needed more time to prepare for the vote.
Ghazal said Abbas, in return for the delay, has promised Hamas to back an amendment to the election system that could favour the militant group. Hamas wants half of the legislators to be chosen in district elections and half from party slates, a system Abbas agreed to earlier this year when he brokered an informal Hamas truce with Israel.
Hamas and Fatah are already locked in a dispute over the results of the local eletions. It has threatened to walk away from an informal ceasefire with Israel that Abbas negotiated unless Fatah withdraws a legal challenge to results in three Gaza communities where the Islamic militants won elections earlier this month.
That dispute began after a special court, formed to settle election disputes, ordered a partial revote in the towns of Rafah and Beit Lahiya and the Bureij refugee camp.
Egyptian mediators have been meeting with Fatah and Hamas leaders in Gaza to try to resolve the dispute.
In Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip, Jewish settlers barred a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from entering to discuss the withdrawal. Most settlers have refused to co-operate with the government on the pull-out, which they have vowed to resist. The aide, Ilan Cohen, proceeded to other Gaza settlements, where settlers let him speak.
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