Elections in West Bank alone ‘reinforces’ division, says Hamas

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, said on Tuesday that carrying out the municipal elections in the West Bank only, and not in the Gaza Strip, would “reinforce internal division,” Quds Press has reported.

“The decision of the Palestinian Authority government is a strike against the reconciliation efforts,” commented Hamas spokesman Hazim Qasim. “This proves that the government deals with the Palestinian issues based on partisan grounds and acts as if it only represents Fatah.”

Qasim called on the PA to provide a legal and secure environment for the elections. He also said that the government should cancel the recent modifications to the election law.

Read: Local elections will be start of political reconciliation, says PA

“Any elections must be based on national agreement,” he stressed. Holding elections is a Palestinian right, said the Hamas official. “The government must not exploit this.”

Early on Tuesday, the PA government based in Ramallah announced that municipal elections in the occupied West Bank will be held on 13 March, but postponed the polls in the Gaza Strip.

In October last year, the PA’s Supreme Court decided to carry out the elections in the West Bank alone and cancelled them in the Gaza Strip under the pretext of the “illegitimacy of the appeal courts in Gaza.” Later on, the government cancelled the elections in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Observers point out that the PA headed by Mahmoud Abbas knows that if free and fair elections are held across the occupied Palestinian territories, then Hamas candidates are likely to do very well. PA security services arrest Hamas activists and politicians regularly in the West Bank, calling into question the legitimacy of such polls in the absence of any meaningful opposition.