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Roundup: PNA government, Hamas bitterly divided over municipal elections

Xinhua, February 1, 2017 Adjust font size:

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) consensus government decided on Tuesday to hold municipal elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on May 13, while Islamic Hamas movement said the decision is "illegal" and it will boycott it.

Hussein al-Araj, minister of Palestinian municipal affairs, told Xinhua that May 13 was decided by the government in its weekly cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.

He said the decision was made in accordance to the electoral law.

The municipal elections were sheduled on Oct. 8, 2016, but postponed after a Palestinian court ruled that they should only be held in the West Bank because Hamas courts in Gaza deprived dozens of Abbas Fatah Party's candidates of their right to run for the elections.

"A new court, specialized in elections, is to be established and it will be authorized to decide whether this candidate or that one fits to run in the municipal elections," said al-Araj, adding that municipal elections will be held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

However, Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in an emailed press statement that the election decision is "rejected and illegal."

"This decision boosts the internal division, serves the policies and interests of Fatah and harms the interests of the Palestinian people and their establishments," said Bahroum.

"It's illogic to hold the elections amid severe internal division and any elections should be held in a frame of a reconciliation deal," he added.

In an earlier exclusive interview with Xinhua, Salah al-Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, said that his movement won't participate in the municipal elections in the Palestinian territories until the end of the decade-long internal split between Hamas and Fatah.

Hamas forcibly seized control of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, after weeks of fighting with Abbas' security forces.

Since then, an internal Palestinian political and geographical division remains between the two sides despite a series of mediations from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt.

The last municipal elections held in the West Bank without the Gaza Strip was in 2011, while the last elections held in both enclaves was in 2005. Endit