Abbas's elections call faces new challenge
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's call for election is facing a new challenge after elections board said it is unable to hold polls in the Palestinian territories.
The Central Elections Committee (CEC) said that Hamas questioned the legitimacy of its work and refused to receive the committee's staff in the Gaza Strip where the Islamic Hamas movement holds sway.
Israel, which occupies East Jerusalem, has not responded to the CEC's request to prepare for the elections in the territory where most of the population is Palestinian.
Abbas decreed presidential and parliamentary elections to be held in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem on Jan. 24, 2010 after Hamas rejected an Egyptian offer to reconcile with his Fatah movement.
The commission did not suggest another date for conducting voting.
On Nov. 5, Abbas announced he would not run in the upcoming elections, citing deadlocks in restoring Palestinian unity and resuming fruitful peace talks with Israel.
The failure to stage elections may push Abbas to carry out an alleged threat of early resignation.
Meanwhile, Fatah has accused Hamas of "deepening" the internal Palestinian crisis by obstructing the elections. The crisis started when Hamas has forcibly taken over Gaza in 2007.
"Hamas' procedures in blocking polls are strange and this means that it is going ahead in depending the split and means it doesn't want an end to the irregular status of the Palestinian situation," Azzam al-Ahmad, a Fatah official, told Xinhua.
Al-Ahmad accused Hamas of "helping Israel and the United States finding justifications to evade the obligations of the peace process." He explained that Israel will continue building settlements in the West Bank and conducting excavations in Jerusalem, "taking advantage of the Palestinian status that Hamas' existence in Gaza has caused."
But Hamas has reiterated its position, playing down CEC's announcement that it could not hold polls as scheduled.
"The elections are impossible without national understanding and would not have succeeded and this is what the CEC has practically understood," said Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas politburo.
He told Xinhua over the phone that the CEC's recommendation to put off the elections "was part of unveiled, unappreciated political maneuver."
The CEC on Thursday said it is unable to organize the polls.
"We have informed the president that we can't hold the elections on their scheduled time," said Hanna Nasser, the CEC director.
Hamas, which won the parliamentary elections in 2006, says it can not allow voting to take place unless the national and political unity is restored.
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