A new Palestinian presidential decree restricts running for elections, Hamas criticizes

Sunday September 02, 2007 18:47 by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued on Sunday a new decree that restricts running for elections as Hamas criticized the move as ‘illegal’.

PLO's Logo

The presidential decree presses for changes into the Palestinian legislative and presidential elections, involving respect of the charter of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the independence memo, as a perquisite for running for the elections.

It also stipulates that the President has the right to order holding legislative or presidential elections, three months before his term comes to an end.

The legislative elections system, according to the proposed law, will involve direct elections on basis of proportional representation ‘lists’, based on ‘unity’ of the Palestinian territories in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

As for the number of Palestinian legislative council members, it is 132, while the list representation should be made up of one party, a coalition of two parties or even more.

The decision has been criticized by the Hamas parliamentary bloc, which enjoys the majority of current legislative council’s seats, and the Islamist group considered it illegal.

Hamas had early called for reforming the PLO as a condition for joining it, demanding that it should enjoy majority of PLO’s seats, which are made up of the major Fatah and about nine other Palestinian factions.

Abbas’s decree comes as the Palestinian president, who is in top of the Palestinian Authority, called for holding early presidential and legislative elections, in the wake of Hamas’s takeover of the coastal region in mid June.

Hamas won the January 2006 legislative elections within the constituency representation system. The group continues to reject the past signed peace agreements, PLO had previously reached with Israel, an issue that has placed the movement under a crippling international boycott.

ramallah | palestinian politics | news report rami at imemc dot org