Mahmoud Abbas unveils long-awaited Palestinian poll dates
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced dates for the first Palestinian elections in more than 15 years, scheduling legislative polls for May 22 and August 31 and a presidential vote on July 31.
The announcement follows months of talks between Mr Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the Palestinian Authority based in the occupied West Bank, and its rival Hamas, the group that controls the coastal enclave of Gaza.
The long-standing rivalry between the two main Palestinian factions was seen as a leading factor in stalling progress towards a new vote. But Fatah and Hamas have lately been engaged in unity talks, reaching an agreement in principle last September to hold elections this year.
Hamas welcomed Mr Abbas’s announcement and said they hadin recent months “worked to overcome obstacles in order to reach this day”. The group said it wanted “free elections in which voters can express themselves without pressure and without restrictions, in all fairness and transparency”.
Mr Abbas signed a decree concerning elections, specifying the May and July dates, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The decree said the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian Authority, would be followed by voting for the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, on August 31. While the PA administers the occupied Palestinian territories, the PLO is the UN-recognised representative of Palestinians.
“This announcement was eagerly awaited. It is a very important step,” Palestinian analyst Arif Jaffal, head of the Arab World Democracy and Electoral Monitor, told AFP news agency.
Mr Abbas was elected with 62 per cent of the vote in the 2005 Palestinian presidential election and replaced Yasser Arafat.
Mr Abbas said he expected polls to be held “in all governorates of Palestine, including east Jerusalem”, which was annexed by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War but is considered occupied territory.
Israel bans all Palestinian Authority activity in east Jerusalem, and there was no indication it would allow a Palestinian vote within the city.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces his own re-election contest in March, describes Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided capital”.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said his government “was ready to get things going to facilitate the electoral process, in total transparency, while waiting for pluralism”.
About 2.8 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, while the densely populated Gaza Strip is home to two million.
In the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, Hamas won an unexpected landslide. The polls resulted in a brief unity government but it collapsed and in 2007, bloody clashes erupted in Gaza between the rival factions, with Hamas ultimately seizing control of the enclave.