Palestinian body backs Abbas call for early polls

Ramallah (West Bank), July 20: A top Palestinian body backed President Mahmoud Abbas's motion for early elections in the Palestinian Authority today despite rival Hamas's rejection of the plan.

The 115-member Palestinian Central Committee (PCC), a decision-making forum of Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) endorsed the motion to hold early presidential and legislative elections.

The elections are currently scheduled for 2010.

''The PCC supports the president's call for early parliamentary and presidential elections,'' the official statement of the endorsement said.

Islamist group Hamas questioned Abbas's legitimacy to hold early elections, claiming it is a bid to strip the group's power a month after it violently took over the Gaza Strip, routing Abbas's Fatah forces.

Abbas told reporters yesterday that he planned to issue a presidential decree for the early elections, but did not say when either poll might be held.

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar vowed Hamas would never allow a new election to take hold in Gaza.

''A man who calls for the reoccupation of land, especially the Gaza Strip, which was liberated (from Israel), can he still be a president?'' Zahar said referring to Abbas.

Abbas, head of the secular Fatah faction, dissolved a Hamas-led unity government after the Gaza crisis last month.

Hamas, which crushed Fatah in legislative elections last year has tried to enter rapprochement talks with Abbas, but he has ruled this out.

Reuters>