PA committee urges 6-month elections postponement
Officials say court ruling rejecting voting in Gaza necessitates a delay of municipal polling
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The Palestinian Central Elections Commission on Monday urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to delay municipal elections by at least six months, after the PA high court ordered the polling be held only in the West Bank and not in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The commission said a delay would be “in the Palestinian interest” in light of the ruling.
The court ruling could bring to an end hopes that the municipal elections would be the first since 2006 in which both Hamas and the PA would participate.
“The court orders the implementation of the government’s decision on the holding of local elections,” court president Hisham al-Hatoo ruled before a packed courtroom in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
He said however the judiciary in Gaza did not have necessary “guarantees” in place for the holding of the polls.
The elections had initially been set for October 8 to choose municipal councils in some 416 cities and towns in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hamas boycotted the last Palestinian municipal elections in 2012, but it had been due to participate this year.
On September 8, the court suspended the polls following disputes between Fatah and Hamas over candidate lists.
Official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported Monday that a new date for the polls is to be set within a month.
Hamas immediately dismissed Monday’s decision as “political.”
“The high court’s decision on the elections is discriminatory and ratifies the division” between Gaza and the West Bank, it said in a statement.
The Times of Israel Community.