WEST BANK: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vows fair and transparent elections across the Palestinian territories

Record ID: 560910

  • Title: WEST BANK: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vows fair and transparent elections across the Palestinian territories
  • Date: 26th November 2008
  • Summary: (MER) RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (NOVEMBER 25, 2008) (REUTERS) PALESTINIAN FLAGS VARIOUS OF PALESTINIAN CABINET MINISTERS ARRIVING FOR WEEKLY MEETING PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS ARRIVING FOR MEETING
  • Embargoed: 11th December 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8S0OCOCPK7D6OF44QS6T3IJD9
  • Story Text: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vows elections in the occupied West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza Strip will be monitored by international observers.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday (November 25) he will hold elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza under the supervision of international monitors
    "The presidential and parliamentary elections will take place in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If they won through the ballot box they have to respect the judgement of the ballot boxes," Abbas told reporters following a cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

    "We ask for international monitors regardless of their numbers or the institutions that send them. Let them come and see for themselves and monitor the elections as we did in the past. It will be a fair, free, and transparent elections," he added.
    Locked in a power struggle with Hamas Islamists who refuse to accept peacemaking with Israel, Abbas is trying to restore his authority and the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation organisation (PLO) as the representative of all Palestinians, a year and a half after Hamas drove his Fatah forces from Gaza and took control in the coastal territory.
    On Sunday (November 23), he pledged to hold presidential and parliamentary elections next year if an Egyptian-led bid to secure rapprochement between the rival Palestinian factions fails.
    Hamas insists that Abbas' four-year termon January 9 and says it will not recognise him as president after that date. Abbas argues the law says his termin 2010.
    Hamas, which does not recognise Abbas' PLO as the sole, legitimate representative of all Palestinians, has demanded a new presidential election, but has rejected Abbas's proposal to hold simultaneous parliamentary elections which could cut short Hamas's formal dominance of the Palestinian legislature.
    Abbas said he would give Hamas until the end of the year to resume negotiations, which broke down earlier this month when the Islamist group refused to attend scheduled talks in Cairo.
    Hamas won the last Palestinian election in January 2006, confounding Western hopes that the vote would reinforce Abbas and his secular Fatah faction as they pursue talks with Israel.
    Hundreds of Hamas supporters including many lawmakers have since been arrested in Israeli raids and by Abbas' security forces.
    Abbas fired the Hamas-led government after the Islamist group took over Gaza in fighting with Fatah loyalists. Fatah still holds sway over the West Bank.
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