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.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
RSS