Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds a rare meeting via videoconference with representatives of Palestinian factions gathered at the Palestinian Embassy in Beirut in Ramallah, West Bank, Sept. 3, 2020, to discuss how to respond to such agreements and the Middle East peace plan announced by Washington this year.
Palestinian autonomous government President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Friday the 15th that general parliamentary and autonomous government elections will be held in all cities across the country, including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. This will be the first Palestinian elections since Abbas was elected president, and since 2006, after a 15-year absence.
According to an executive order signed by Abbas, Palestinian parliamentary elections are expected to be held on May 22 this year, and elections for the presidency of the autonomous government on July 31, according to a comprehensive foreign media report.
Abbas’s main rival, the militant Islamist group Hamas, welcomed the decision and said it expects free elections to allow voters to express their views in a fair and transparent manner without any pressure or restrictions.
“Fatah party (Palestinian National Liberation Movement) and Hamas have been negotiating for the past few months and reached an agreement last September to hold general elections in 2021, but Abbas, now 85, did not say whether he would run again in the elections.
Abbas, the leader of Fatah, won the presidency of the autonomous government in 2005 with 62 percent of the vote, and the next parliamentary elections in 2006 were won by Hamas (the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement).
The elections exacerbated internal Palestinian political rifts and were postponed several times after Hamas occupied the Gaza (Gaza) area in 2007. And Hamas, which established its own government in Gaza and refuses to give up its weapons holdings, is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and several Western governments.
Israel reached diplomatic agreements with four Arab countries last year, frustrating the Palestinian public and civil society efforts to reconcile and unite in an effort to break out of international isolation.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh defeated Abbas, the current president of the autonomous government, in a poll conducted last year by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Research.
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