Gaza, August 27: Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas says he will call for a parliamentary election in January should reconciliation efforts with the rival Hamas movement fail.
“We are still offering the same proposal, but if it’s refused, then the sole alternative is to go to presidential and parliamentary elections,” Abbas said, referring to a unity government including his Fatah party and Hamas.
Abbas made the remarks while speaking at the first meeting of the Palestinian National Council (PNC) in 13 years in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Hamas, however, says it will not accept a new poll in January unless a “package deal” is reached with Abbas’s Fatah party.
The rival factions have so far failed to agree on how the composition of a unity government would be.
Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since Hamas came to power in the 2006 general elections. Differences between the two Palestinian factions reached its peak in June 2007 when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a bid to “foil a coupe plot” by some Fatah elements.
Abbas in response sacked the Hamas government and set up a parallel cabinet in Ramallah.
—–Agencies