Abbas won’t run in PLO election, officials say

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tells political confidants he won’t seek re-election to the top posts in the Palestine Liberation Organization or his Fatah movement in upcoming elections, according to Amin Maqbul, the secretary-general of the Fatah Revolutionary Council.

Maqbul tells the Palestinian news agency Ma’an that “Abu Mazen [Abbas] said that he wants to give a space for other factions to participate. … We asked him to think again, especially in this hard and serious period, and amid the effort by some people to get rid of him.”

Abbas and a handful other senior Palestinian officials, including his chief negotiator Saeb Erekat resigned from the PLO Executive Committee earlier this month. The Palestinian National Council is convening this month to elect a new executive committee.