PLO extends Abbas mandate as president

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) announced on Wednesday it had extended the mandates of President Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas-dominated Legislative Council until conditions are in place for a new election.

AFP - The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on Wednesday extended the mandates of both president Mahmud Abbas and the Hamas-dominated parliament until elections can be held.
   
"The Central Committee of the PLO took the decision that president Abbas and the Legislative Council will continue their duties until the next election in accordance with the Basic Law," PLO representative Qaid al-Ghul told AFP.
   
The decision by the powerful umbrella group was an attempt to prevent a constitutional vacuum after January 24, when the present mandates expire, as the Islamist Hamas movement has vowed to prevent a vote in their Gaza enclave.
   
Abbas had called elections for next month but the Islamist group that drove his forces from Gaza in June 2007 has said it will not allow a vote in its territory until there is a national reconciliation agreement.
   
The PLO, dominated by Abbas's secular Fatah party, represents most political factions but not Hamas. The international community considers the umbrella group the Palestinians' sole legitimate representative.
   
Hamas has said that the Western-backed president's four-year term expired last January and that the parliament -- in which it holds a solid majority -- will remain legitimate until a new one can be sworn in following elections.
   
The group has also said that any decisions made by the PLO in the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah will not be binding on it.
   
It remained unclear, however, how long Abbas would remain in office even after his mandate was extended.
   
The beleaguered Palestinian leader said in November he did not wish to seek another term in the elections he had called for January because of his frustration with US-led peace efforts and Israel's refusal to completely freeze settlement activity.
   
A recent poll carried out by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) earlier this month found that 57 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believed both mandates expire in January.
   
The same poll found that 61 percent of Palestinians blame Fatah and Hamas together for the political divide, the latest indicator of rising frustration with both parties.
   
The bitter rift between Fatah and Hamas goes back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when strongmen of the secular Fatah cracked down on the Islamist militant group.
   
Tensions soared during the last parliamentary election in January 2006 when Hamas, running for the first time in a national ballot, unexpectedly routed the long-dominant Fatah.
   
Hamas grabbed 74 seats in the 132-member parliament, leaving Fatah with 45.
   
The divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas fighters expelled Abbas loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished and densely populated territory.

Date created : 2009-12-16