Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday he would call early elections, harshly denouncing the Islamic Hamas for its Gaza takeover, declaring, "even the devil cannot match their lies."
In a speech on Wednesday, Abbas asked the Palestine Central Council, a Palestinian Liberation Organization decision-making body, to endorse his call for elections that aides said would be designed to freeze Hamas out of the political arena.
Abbas' aides said they expected the election by the end of the year or early nexy year. His announcement came as the US and other international mediators were moving swiftly to try to revive Mideast peace efforts.
Abbas denounced Hamas in the harshest terms in his speech, blaming the Islamist militants for staging "a coup" against him in Gaza and for provoking Israel and Egypt to seal Gaza's borders.
Hamas is "committing capital crimes, bloody crimes against our people every day, every minute, every hour," he fumed. "There will be no dialogue until they return Gaza to what it was before."
"Even the devil cannot match their lies," he said.
In five days of bloody fighting last month, Hamas crushed Fatah gunmen and the presidential security force in Gaza.
Abbas retaliated by dismissing the Hamas-led coalition government formed with Fatah after last year's elections, and created a caretaker government of technocrats and moderates that governs the West Bank but holds little sway in Gaza.
"We will call on the council to decide on early elections," he said. "We won't exclude anybody from having their say in a democratic way."
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said neither Abbas nor the council was empowered to call elections.
"It is not legitimate to issue such a recommendation," he said. "This council has expired and has no mandate and no authority."
In Jerusalem, the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said the proposed elections did not come up in his talks with Abbas.
Solana was on a last trip to the region before a meeting yesterday in Portugal between the EU, UN US and Russia - the "Quartet" of Mideast peacemakers - with their newly appointed emissary, former British prime minister Tony Blair. The meeting was to follow up on US President George W. Bush's call this week for a peace conference in the autumn.
Abbas said the conference, to be chaired by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, should address the core issues of Israel's borders, Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
"We have to be ready to establish a Palestinian state when it comes," he said.
Israel has welcomed the movement to revive peace efforts that stalled in 2000, but has been reluctant to deal with the conflict's toughest issues as long as violence continues and Hamas - which rejects Israel's legitimacy as a nation - remains a political factor.
Palestinian officials said Abbas wanted to hold elections before Israel releases Hamas legislators it has arrested, pre-empting the possibility that they could return to parliament and vote the caretaker government from power.
Israel is unlikely to release the legislators except as part of a prisoner exchange for three captured Israeli soldiers, one held in Gaza and two held by the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
To further enhance Fatah's election chances, Abbas announced he would change the electoral system, eliminating regional balloting.
Last year, Fatah candidates fought each other in several constituencies, allowing Hamas to win those seats and contributing to Fatah's unprecedented rout.
Instead, Palestinians will vote for parties, and parliament seats would be apportioned according to the percentage of votes each party received.
Though Abbas said the elections will be open to all Palestinians, Hamas said it would oppose the balloting, and it was hard to see how they could be conducted in Gaza.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
FRUSTRATIONS: One in seven youths in China and Indonesia are unemployed, and many in the region are stuck in low-productivity jobs, the World Bank said Young people across Asia are struggling to find good jobs, with many stuck in low-productivity work that the World Bank said could strain social stability as frustrations fuel a global wave of youth-led protests. The bank highlighted a persistent gap between younger and more experienced workers across several Asian economies in a regional economic update released yesterday, noting that one in seven young people in China and Indonesia are unemployed. The share of people now vulnerable to falling into poverty is now larger than the middle class in most countries, it said. “The employment rate is generally high, but the young struggle to
ENERGY SHIFT: A report by Ember suggests it is possible for the world to wean off polluting sources of power, such as coal and gas, even as demand for electricity surges Worldwide solar and wind power generation has outpaced electricity demand this year, and for the first time on record, renewable energies combined generated more power than coal, a new analysis said. Global solar generation grew by a record 31 percent in the first half of the year, while wind generation grew 7.7 percent, according to the report by the energy think tank Ember, which was released after midnight yesterday. Solar and wind generation combined grew by more than 400 terawatt hours, which was more than the increase in overall global demand during the same period, it said. The findings suggest it is
FIRST STAGE: Hamas has agreed to release 48 Israeli hostages in exchange for 250 ‘national security prisoners’ as well as 1,700 Gazans, but has resisted calls to disarm Israel plans to destroy what remains of Hamas’ network of tunnels under Gaza, working with US approval after its hostages are freed, it said yesterday. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that the operation would be conducted under an “international mechanism” led by the US. “Israel’s great challenge after the hostage release phase will be the destruction of all Hamas terrorist tunnels in Gaza,” Katz said. “I have ordered the army to prepare to carry out this mission,” he added. Hamas operates a network of tunnels under Gaza, allowing its fighters to operate out of sight of Israeli reconnaissance. Some have passed under
RSS