Hamas to challenge Abbas referendum in parliament

RAMALLAH, June 11 (Reuters) The Hamas-led government plans to challenge Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in parliament tomorrow over a referendum he called on a statehood manifesto that implicitly recognises Israel, Hamas lawmakers said.

While legal experts disagreed on whether parliament could strike down a decree that Abbas issued yesterday setting the referendum for July 26, a resounding vote against it could complicate the plan or put him under pressure to back down.

Hamas lawmakers said parliament would hold an emergency session on Monday, intensifying a power struggle between the new government and Abbas.

''We will propose parliament vote against the referendum because it's illegal,'' Hamas legislator Yasser Mansour said today.

Hamas holds a majority in parliament after trouncing Abbas's Fatah movement in January elections. The militant group took office in March, leading the West and Israel to sever funds to the government.

Fatah is the second largest group in the legislature, followed by several smaller parties.

The moderate Abbas and Hamas have sharply competing visions of how to deal with Israel.

Abbas, who was elected separately in early 2005, wants to resume peace talks. Hamas' charter calls for destroying Israel and on Friday it ended a 16-month truce after seven alestinians, including five members of one family, were killed on a Gaza beach in a day of Israeli shelling.

Abbas has said he has the power to call a referendum under the Palestinian basic law, which functions as a constitution.

''COUP ATTEMPT'' The Islamists have called it a ''coup attempt'' and said they would boycott it.

Independent legal experts were divided on Abbas's right to hold a referendum. Some said he had the authority, while others argued he needed parliament to pass a law first.

Hanan Ashrawi, an independent legislator, said the parties might end up in court, something that could delay the referendum.

''If they (lawmakers) put the referendum to a vote then there will be a legal problem between the president and parliament. They may go to court,'' she said.

The proposed manifesto implicitly recognises Israel by calling for a Palestinian state in all of the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 West Asia war. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last year.

Opinion polls suggest most Palestinians back the proposal, penned by Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli jail.

Israel has dismissed it as meaningless.

Some analysts believe passage of the referendum would allow Abbas to sack the government as a means of lifting foreign sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority and of clearing him to pursue his plan for negotiations with Israel.

A referendum would be seen as a confidence vote on the new government.

A senior Abbas aide said the referendum could be called off if Hamas fully accepted the document before the vote was held.

Palestinians will be asked on July 26 to vote ''yes'' or ''no'' to the question: ''Do you agree with the document of national agreement -- the prisoner's document?'' REUTERS SI BD2254