Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qureia lent his voice on Tuesday to a growing chorus insisting that the January 25 parliamentary elections be postponed unless Israel allows Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the municipality boundaries.
”We insist that elections be held on time,” he said at the opening of the weekly Cabinet meeting, held on the same day as the official start of campaigning for the polls.
But he added: ”We nevertheless hope that conditions will be right then. There will be no elections without Jerusalem.”
Qureia’s remarks came after President Mahmoud Abbas also said for the first time late on Monday that he would postpone the elections if Israel did not allow voting in East Jerusalem.
”If Jerusalem is not included, all the factions have agreed that there will be no elections,” Abbas told al-Jazeera television while travelling in Qatar.
The Islamic Hamas movement, competing in Palestinian elections for the first time and providing a stiff challenge to Fatah, has previously said it wants the poll to be held as scheduled.
The Palestinian premier had also previously insisted on holding the elections on time under all circumstances.
But he has come under increasing pressure to postpone the vote from ”old guard” members of his ruling Fatah party, who fear defeat either by the radical Islamic Hamas movement, or by younger Fatah challengers, and who also say that the rising anarchy in the Gaza Strip must be brought to heel.
Hamas late on Monday reacted angrily to Abbas’s remark, charging the East Jerusalem issue was an ”excuse”.
Amid the election-date furore, Fatah held a ceremony on Tuesday at Yasser Arafat’s grave in Ramallah to kick-start their election campaign officially. The party promised to battle corruption and unemployment, as well as carry out reforms and bring security.
”This is an historic opportunity to show the world that we are a people who deserve freedom and an independent state,” former information minister Nabil Shaath told reporters at the presidential headquarters compound in Ramallah.
The elections will take place on time, he insisted, and regardless of whom emerges victorious, Palestinians should act as partners because they share a common future.
A total of 728 candidates are competing in the elections. The new Palestinian Basic Law stipulates that half the 132-seat Parliament will be elected through proportional representation, the other via districts.
A total of 414 candidates are competing for the 66 district seats, while 314 candidates represent 11 lists contesting the proportional elections. — Sapa-DPA