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Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections in 3 months
The Cambodia News.Net
Friday 23rd October, 2009
Elections will be held in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza on January 24 2010.
The presidential and parliamentary elections were announced by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a presidential decree on Friday.
Hamas immediately criticised the move as pre-empting reconciliation talks between the leading factions Fatah and Hamas, talks which have so far failed to reach a settlement between the two. Part of the discussions hinged on elections being delayed until June to allow a reconciliation to take place.
Hamas is angered in particular that the PA plans to hold elections in Gaza. "This announcement means that elections will take place only in the West Bank, cementing the Palestinian split instead of fixing the problem," Sami Abu Zuhri , a spokesman for Hamas, said Friday. Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, leaving Fatah in control of the West Bank.
The move by Abbas is risky as his support among the Palestinian population has fallen since he bowed to pressure from the U.S. and Israel to seek a deferral of consideration of the Goldstone report into alleged war crimes in Gaza by the UN General Assembly. Abbas was pressured into the move by the U.S. on behalf of Israel, on the basis that the debate over the report would distract from efforts to re-start the peace process.
However within days of Abbas agreeing to support the deferral, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said there would be no peace between the two parties “for many years.”
Lieberman said efforts to reach a final peace deal had failed since the first accord between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993. He said it was unrealistic to think a long-term agreement on ending the conflict could be reached at this time and that whoever thought an agreement soon be reached soon just didn’t understand the situation.
Abbas has since taken steps to reverse his stance but considerable momentum has been lost and his own standing remains diminished.  Email this story to a friend
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