Saturday, July 21, 2007

Fatah leaders: Abbas’s call for early elections “crazy step”


"RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- A number of prominent Fatah leaders has described the call of PA chief Mahmoud Abbas for early PA presidential and legislative elections without national harmony as “a call for early civil war”.

The Fatah leaders who spoke to the Quds Press news agency on condition of anonymity described Abbas’s call as an “insane step" that aims at destroying the Palestinian national issue.

They also affirmed that Abbas’s invitation was some sort of “political heresy” as no sane politician could believe that early elections in the PA could be implemented under such kind of political atmosphere prevailing in the Palestinian arena.

“Only under national harmony, especially an agreement between the two biggest factions in the Palestinian arena Hamas and Fatah, early elections could be held as no one can unilaterally hold even municipal elections rather than presidential and legislative elections in the current atmosphere”, the high-ranking Fatah leaders added.

Moreover, they warned that the hasty “unconstitutional” edicts issued by Abbas based on false information fed to him by a one-sided party talking about alleged Hamas’s violations against Fatah cadres in Gaza Strip were indeed dangerous steps jeopardizing the future of the Palestinian national issue.

They described such inclination of Abbas as not reflecting the ideology of the mainstream in Fatah faction, but, they added, those steps reflected the desire by the entourage surrounding Abbas to achieve a number of personal advances at the expense of the Palestinian national unity.

Yet, they affirmed that any attempt by the PLO’s institutions, including the central council and the executive committee, to marginalize Hamas in the Palestinian arena will end up in total failure.

Hamas’s presence in the Palestinian arena is almost equal to the presence of all Palestinian factions under the PLO’s current setup, and thus any attempt to revive dead bodies in the PLO, after they were strangled by the Fatah-controlled PA over the past decade, with the aim to sideline Hamas is a desperate attempt”, the Fatah leaders underscored.

Furthermore, they affirmed that Abbas’s rejection of calls for national dialogue wasn’t gaining the blessing of the bulk of Fatah cadres, describing US president George W. Bush's idea of an international conference over the Palestinian issue next autumn as “futile”, adding that the Israeli occupation government wasn’t ready for negotiations over a final status settlement with the Palestinians."

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