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PNA to postpone Palestinian elections, Hamas rejects

Xinhua, October 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) consensus government decided on Tuesday to postpone local elections for four months, a decision rejected as "absurd" by the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah told a cabinet during its weekly session held in the southern West Bank city of Hebron that the decision was made after all the needed legal and judiciary measures.

"The aim is to hold the local elections in all the Palestinian territories in one time," Hamdallah said.

The cabinet decision came one day after the Palestinian Supreme Court ruled that the municipal elections be held on the West Bank only, but not in the Gaza Strip, which has been under Hamas rule since 2007.

Following the court ruling, the Palestinian Central Elections Commission said that it recommends to President Mahmoud Abbas to postpone the local elections so that elections can be held in the West Bank and Gaza on the same day.

The Islamic Hamas movement rejected the PNA cabinet decision as "absurd" and "playing with the Palestinian process of democracy."

"The movement rejects any postponement of the (local) elections and insists on holding it on its proper date and time," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told a news briefing in Gaza. "It is a kind of confusion and evasion of the elections,"

Abu Zuhri held rival Fatah Party "fully responsible for these decisions," saying that "Fatah doesn't respect laws and the decisions of the Central Elections Commission."

Hamas would not accept "these absurd decisions," he added. Endit