An election that had been set for next month, in which Yasser Arafat was running for another term as Palestinian president, was postponed indefinitely on Sunday.
Palestinian leaders made the decision at a Cabinet meeting, saying afterward that it was impossible to hold the election, which had been scheduled for Jan. 20, as long as Israeli troops were occupying most of the West Bank and restricting movement in the Gaza Strip.
"We cannot hold these elections, simply because the Israeli side has obstructed our efforts to have it, through the occupation, incursions, closures and siege," said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator.
The action formalized a decision most experts considered inevitable, with complicated internal and regional politics as the US ponders a possible invasion of Iraq.
The elections were scheduled last summer, after US President George W. Bush called for reform in the Palestinian Authority and suggested that he could not support moves toward a Palestinian state as long as Arafat was the leader. But US officials did not support this election since it was felt that although his popularity was falling, he was likely to win it.
No credible candidates rose to challenge him for the position of president -- which he won in 1996 -- and many Palestinians resented an American president telling them whom to support regardless of what they thought of Arafat.
Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, denied that the Israeli troops in the West Bank were the problem, calling the postponement a ploy by Arafat to exert pressure for their withdrawal.
Gissin also contended that the postponement was a way for Arafat to cling to power.
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