Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday that he would call snap presidential and parliamentary elections in the New Year if reconciliation talks with the Islamist movement Hamas failed.
But Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since June last year, swiftly rejected his threat, saying he had no powers to dissolve the parliament, in which they won a large majority in the last elections in 2006.
The Palestinian president stressed that he remained committed to Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks with Hamas, which the Islamists walked out of earlier this month accusing his security forces of rounding up their supporters in the West Bank.
But he warned that if the talks failed to bear fruit, he would call snap elections.
“If the dialogue does not succeed, then at the start of next year we will issue a presidential decree calling parliamentary and presidential elections,” Abbas said.
In a move aimed at strengthening Abbas’ hand, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council later on Sunday elected him “president of the state of Palestine” in a symbolic vote.
Hamas swiftly contested the new title.
“The president of the state is elected by the people, not by a body with no legitimacy such as the PLO Central Council,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.
It was not immediately clear what powers Abbas, who is also PLO chairman, would use to dissolve parliament early.
The Palestinian basic law does not give him that right as president of the Palestinian Authority, something that Hamas was quick to seize on.
“The law does not give any authority to the president on parliament and nobody can dissolve it before” elections are due in 2010, Taher al-Nunu, another spokesman for the Hamas administration, said in Gaza.
“We hope the dialogue will succeed and that the president’s office will create a conducive atmosphere by freeing the prisoners in the West Bank,” he said.
Hamas accuses Abbas’ security forces of holding more than 600 of their elected officials and supporters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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