Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he would call early elections, harshly denouncing the Islamic Hamas in speech before a PLO body, declaring, "even the devil cannot match their lies."

Abbas was addressing the Palestine Central Council in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He heaped criticism on Hamas because of its violent takeover of Gaza last month, when it vanquished Fatah forces loyal to Abbas.

"We will call on the council to decide on early elections," he said. "We want elections because a democratic choice is the right for all the people," he said. "We won't exclude anybody from having their say in a democratic way."

Earlier yesterday, Palestinian officials said Abbas was considering calling an election to freeze Hamas out of the political arena. Abbas dismissed the Hamas-Fatah unity government after the Gaza takeover and installed a new Cabinet with his backers.

Abbas said he would call for a change in the electoral system, eliminating regional balloting. The regional voting cost Fatah a number of seats in the 2006 election, when rival Fatah candidates faced each other and handed victories to Hamas. The Islamists handily won the election, defeating Abbas' Fatah, which ruled Palestinian politics unchallenged for decades.

Instead, Palestinians will vote for parties, a system known as proportional representation. The parliament would be divided among the parties in proportion to the votes they received.

In the speech, Abbas repeated his charge that Hamas carried out a coup against him in Gaza. "Nothing can justify the crime of the coup they committed," he said.

Hamas is "committing capital crimes, bloody crimes against our people every day, every minute, every hour," he fumed. "There will be no dialogue until they return Gaza to what it was before."

In response, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri in Gaza blamed Abbas for the collapse of the Hamas-Fatah government.

He also said the Palestine Central Council had no authority to call elections. "It is not legitimate to issue such a recommendation," he said. "This council has expired and has no mandate and no authority."

(China Daily via agencies July 19, 2007)