GAZA CITY, 10 December 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he would dismiss the Parliament and call early elections. Officials, who attended a meeting of PLO’s powerful executive committee in Ramallah, said Abbas, however, left the door open to reaching a compromise with Hamas on a unity government. Hamas denounced the decision as a “clear coup against democracy.”
Participants of the Ramallah meeting said Abbas planned to deliver a formal nationwide speech next week. “At the end of the speech, he is going to announce that he will resort to early presidential and legislative elections but will keep the door open” for forming a unity government with Hamas, said committee member Khalida Jarar. Months of unity talks between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement broke down last week.
Khalil Al-Hiyya, the chief of the Hamas bloc in Parliament, branded the decision as “a clear coup against democracy.”
“The goal of this decision is to kick Hamas out of the Palestinian political scene. This decision is not in the national interest and will only make the situation more tense,” Hiyya added.
Hamas trounced Fatah in parliamentary elections last January, putting it in control of the Palestinian legislature and Cabinet.
The formation of the Hamas-led government immediately triggered economic sanctions by Israel and the West, which demand the group renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist.
The sanctions have caused widespread hardship throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Yesterday some 2,500 Palestinian police, some firing in the air, pushed into Gaza City’s Parliament building and dozens of parents carrying infants broke into a West Bank clinic in protests against the cash-strapped government. Parliament guards, most of them from Hamas, tried to block the crowd, but were pushed aside as protesters fired in the air in the courtyard of the building. At one point, Hamas guards fired from a window, and protesters in the yard returned fire. Two Hamas guards were injured.
Doctors and nurses at government hospitals had been on strike since September, attending only emergencies and providing minimal services. Yesterday, union leaders said the strikers would return to their jobs today, following government assurances of more payments.
— Additional input from agencies
