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PLO welcomes Hamas decision to agree on holding municipal election

Xinhua, July 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) welcomed on Saturday Islamic Hamas movement decision to agree on holding the first municipal elections in the Palestinian territories since 2006.

Saeb Erekat, the PLO Secretary General said in a statement in Ramallah that he is happy to hear the news that Hamas agreed to hold the municipal elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on October.

"We should resort to the poll and whoever wins will govern," said Erekat, adding "no one will come to appoint himself to govern this people, where Palestine and Jerusalem are more important than Arab and Islamic capitals."

The last municipal elections were held in all the Palestinian territories in 2006, however, the elections were held only in the West Bank in 2012 after Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, refused to hold it in the enclave.

"Hamas violent control of the Gaza Strip is the wound in the body of the Palestinian cause that is still bleeding," said Erekat, adding "all knows that the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem are under Israeli occupation."

He stressed that there will be no independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip only and there will be Palestinian state in the West Bank and Jerusalem without the Gaza Strip.

On Friday, Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip announced that it accepts joining and holding municipal elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

It said in an official press statement, emailed to reporters, that Hamas "affirms that holding the local elections is necessary based on Hamas keenness to rearrange the Palestinian home and boost principle of partnership."

Hamas, which will participate in the elections, promised in the statement that it will succeed the municipal elections in the Palestinian territories. Endit