Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “cannot threaten to cut our allowances in order to put pressure on us to agree to postpone the elections”, Al-Resalah.net quoted a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) saying yesterday.
Abdul Alim Daana, a member of the PFLP’s central committee, said: “We will not give in to Abbas or to anyone else regarding agreeing to postpone the elections. We will only submit to our people’s rights and demands.”
He went on to say that if they succumbed to pressure from any other source than the Palestinian people, then the PFLP would not be acting in the national interest.
Daana explained that the PFLP may agree to postpone the elections for a week or 10 days for only “technical or procedural reasons relating to conducting the elections” but beyond that, they would “categorically reject” another postponement.
Prior to Daana’s statement, reports indicated that the PFLP would declare its agreement to postponing the upcoming elections after heavy pressure from Abbas’ Fatah party and Abbas’ threats to cut off the PFLP’s financial allowances.
The long awaited Palestinian presidential elections are due to take place next month, after the last elections that brought Abbas to power were held in 2005 in the wake of Yasser Arafat’s death. Since Abbas came to power, the presidential elections have been repeatedly postponed.