Abbas sets date for elections despite objections by Hamas

PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas has decreed that presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on January 24th, whether or not his Fatah movement reconciles with rival Hamas.

Mr Abbas said on Saturday that his decision to hold elections on this date was a “constitutional requirement”. The last legislative election, won by Hamas, took place on January 25th, 2006.

He said he was obliged to call for elections after Hamas refused to accept Egypt’s national reconciliation proposal.

“When we didn’t reach national reconciliation, we returned to the constitution and the law,” Mr Abbas told the central council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation at a meeting in Ramallah.

Few Palestinians believe Mr Abbas will be able to implement his decree, however.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, has reservations about the national unity deal and wants elections to be held in June.

The head of Hamas’s Damascus-based politburo, Khaled Mishaal, said: “We condemn the step and consider it illegal and unconstitutional. Reconciliation first, and then we go to elections.”

Hamas is unlikely to allow polling to take place in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. It is not certain whether Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967, would be permitted to vote by the current right-wing Israeli government, although they have voted in previous parliamentary and presidential polls.

This would mean the vote would take place only in the West Bank, where Mr Abbas’s Palestinian Authority administers the affairs of 2.3 million Palestinians.

The latest opinion poll conducted in the Palestinian territories showed that, if elections were held now, 16.8 per cent would vote for Mr Abbas and 16 per cent would vote for Gaza premier Ismail Haniyeh, while 40 per cent would back Fatah candidates for the legislature and 18 per cent would back Hamas candidates.