OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 17 May — Palestinian legislators yesterday urged Yasser Arafat to order elections by early next year while the Israeli Army shot dead a member of the Palestinian security services in its first Ramallah incursion since lifting a siege of the Palestinian leader. The army also killed an unarmed man in Gaza, Palestinian security officials said.
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which began weighing reforms promised by the Palestinian president, recommended that until the elections, the size of the Cabinet should be trimmed down.
“Between now and the beginning of next year there should be legislative and presidential elections,” Hanan Ashrawi, a prominent legislator, said. The last election was in 1996.
She said the legislative committee had also advocated that the current government remain in place for another 45 days from yesterday and then yield to a new 19-member Cabinet, down from the current 32, to be named by Arafat.
Ashrawi also said that the committee had called for an end to “duplication and competition” between Palestinian security services and that they should be subject to the rule of law. It also advocated an independent judiciary.
A consolidation of the Palestinian Authority’s 12 security agencies was one of the key reforms Western officials have demanded of Arafat. Col. Muhammad Dahlan, a close aide to Arafat, suggested last week that the number of security services be reduced to one or two by a series of mergers. There are currently some 10 different security bodies, with a total of 40,000 members. They include the preventive security, Arafat’s personal guard known as Force 17, intelligence agencies and the national security, or police.
Palestinian sources said the United States, the European Union and Israel all wanted one strong Palestinian security force, essential to control the situation on the ground and ensure the relaunching of the peace process.
Earlier, the Palestinian Authority’s Statistics Bureau in Ramallah said it had begun work to update a register of voters for local and general elections, something that could take up to 60 days from the day the vote is authorized.
The PLC was also discussing steps to introduce transparency in Palestinian Authority decision-making and budget spending in response to a growing clamor over corruption, cronyism and incompetence that had contributed to poverty and violence. Arafat called on Wednesday for elections and reforms, although he gave no specifics.
The Statistics Bureau said that holding elections would be an uphill challenge after 19 months of conflict between Israel and Palestinian fighters spearheading an uprising against Israeli occupation in much of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel demonstrated its stranglehold on Palestinian areas again yesterday when troops swooped back into Ramallah and killed a member of the Palestinian security services.
Muhammad Ghanam was shot dead outside a building in the south of the town when eight Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers moved in, the officials said. Three members of Force 17 were arrested when the Israeli forces stormed a building.
In the central Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers killed an unarmed Palestinian civilian, Mohsen Al-Atrash, 17, near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, a Palestinian security source said.
