RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Electoral Commission on Thursday said general elections called for January should be postponed because the vote cannot take place in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
“I regret to say it is unfortunate that the elections will be postponed,” commission head Hanna Nasser told reporters. “It has become clear to us that conducting elections in the Gaza Strip is not likely to happen.”
The election delay risks throwing the bitterly divided Palestinians into a legal and constitutional limbo, since the mandates of both president and Parliament will have run out in January.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will consult with Palestinian Authority officials in the next few days and is likely to accept the commission’s recommendation, officials said. “I believe we will delay the date of the elections,” said Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of the Central Committee of Abbas’ Fatah party.
Abbas had called for presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on Jan. 24, when the four-year mandate of the current Hamas-dominated Parliament runs out.
But Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since June 2007, blasted the presidential decree as unconstitutional because his own mandate ran out in January.
Abbas was elected on Jan. 9, 2005 for a four-year term. The Palestinian Authority extended his presidency by one year so presidential and parliamentary elections could be held on the same date, as required by Palestinian Basic Law.
On Thursday, Hamas hailed the commission’s decision since “conditions are not suitable for a successful election... in the absence of a national consensus,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP in Gaza.
The bitter rift between Fatah and Hamas goes back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when Fatah men cracked down on Hamas.
Tensions jumped during the last parliamentary elections in January 2006 when Hamas, running for the first time in a national ballot, unexpectedly routed the long-dominant Fatah.
Hamas grabbed 74 seats in the 132-member Parliament, leaving Fatah with 45.
Simmering divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas fighters expelled Abbas loyalists from Gaza.
Egypt has unsuccessfully tried for months to get the rivals to sign a reconciliation deal and many analysts interpreted Abbas’ call for elections as a move designed to pressure Hamas.
Abbas has said that he would not stand for re-election because of what aides said was his frustration with the inability by the US to get Israel to freeze settlements in order to resume peace negotiations.
So far there is no sign Hamas intends to accept what Abbas on Wednesday repeated was the offer of his “hand in friendship.” A Hamas spokesman responded immediately to the gesture, dismissing it as a “maneuver.”
