Fatah may split before local elections

The Fatah party my split ahead of the elections if President Mahmoud Abbas excludes supporters of exiled former party leader Mohamed Dahlan, Al-Resalah newspaper reported.

“We are more popular than Abbas,” member of the party’s reformist group and Dahlan supporter, Taha Al-Hajj, said. “We hope that the best person wins the elections, be it Abbas or anyone else, but Abbas is the loser if he insisted on excluding us.”

“It is not necessary to go on a united list for Fatah,” Al-Hajj explained, “We depend on all the people, mainly our supporters in Gaza.”

“Abbas is a traitor and we have thousands of proofs, while he does not have any proof against us… He is not qualified to decide who we are.”

Al-Hajj said Dahlan has extended his hand to Hamas and plans to start afresh in his dealing with the movement. “Mutual meetings have not stopped and there is a lot of cooperation between us,” he said, “we played a big role in resolving the differences between Hamas and Egypt.”

He warned that Abbas may ignore the election results if Hamas won, however if he won he would tighten his hold on the Gaza Strip.

“Time taught us not to trust this person [Abbas] who will never help rebuild the Palestinian national agenda.”