Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced today that parliamentary elections would be delayed, a widely expected move the militant Hamas group said stemmed from fears it would do well at the ballot box.
In a public decree, Mr Abbas said he had decided to postpone the July 17 poll to allow time to resolve a dispute over proposed reforms to the voting law. He gave no new date for the election and said one would be given in a future presidential announcement.
The delay could stoke tensions between Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas, which had been poised to make a strong showing in its first legislative campaign. Hamas had reacted to earlier hints of a delay by accusing Fatah of manoeuvring to cling to power.
Hamas, Islamist vanguard of a Palestinian militant revolt, agreed to a "period of calm" until the end of the year after Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared a ceasefire in February.
But the deal between Mr Abbas and militant factions hinged in part on his promise of more power-sharing through elections.
Hamas entered electoral politics for the first time at the end of last year, since when it has scored victories over corruption-tainted Fatah in a string of West Bank and Gaza town council polls.
Fatah officials said last week the parliamentary poll was likely to be put off because of discord within the party over reforms to the voting law sought by Abbas to give smaller factions like Hamas a better chance of gaining seats.
Mr Abbas has encouraged Hamas, which is sworn to destroying Israel, to enter mainstream politics in the hope of shoring up a truce increasingly prone to violations and broadening his popular mandate for peace talks with Israel.
Mr Sharon has rejected as appeasement Mr Abbas's attempts to co-opt militants and said talks on Palestinian statehood could not resume until the Palestinian leader disarmed the gunmen and dismantled their parent organisations.
Meanwhile Gunmen from the Fatah faction, demanding jobs in the Palestinian police force, blocked a Gaza road to the Egyptian border today and detained a Palestinian diplomat hoping to cross.
The 35 gunmen, many of them masked, stopped the envoy as he made his way to the Rafah border terminal and said he and any other Palestinian officials would not be able to enter Egypt until their demands were met.
"He is our guest and we have taken his diplomatic passport," one of the gunmen said. "Nobody from the Palestinian Authority will travel to Egypt today." A Palestinian Interior Ministry official was in contact with the gunmen and trying to resolve the situation.