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PNC does not represent all Palestinians, says Hamas official

August 16, 2017 at 11:47 am

The Palestinian National Council, as it stands, does not represent all Palestinians, a senior Hamas official said on Tuesday. Political Bureau member Mahmoud Al-Zahar pointed out that the PNC does not include the major Palestinian factions which won the majority of votes in the last general election. His comments were reported by the Palestine Information Centre.

Al-Zahar noted that the PNC represents some Palestinian factions which do not even exist now. He insisted that holding a PNC meeting at this stage is intended solely to reinforce the “false” legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, as well as the President of all three groups, Mahmoud Abbas.

“The current PNC does not have a real representation of the Palestinian street and holding it far away from the national agreement proves its failure,” the Hamas official explained. “It is enough to prove it is unreal for Hamas, which has the parliamentary majority, to say that the PNC does not represent it.”

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He added that the resistance movement is opposed to holding a PNC meeting in this way. “We call for the implementation of the Cairo agreement which includes carrying out parliamentary, presidential and PNC elections simultaneously.” The group which wins the elections, he said, is the one which represents the Palestinians.

Pointing out that Abbas lost his legitimacy in 2009 when his term of office should have ended, Al-Zahar suggested that the Arab leaders and the Palestinians themselves recognise that the current president does not have any real legitimacy. “The proof for this is that the Egyptian request to hold the PNC elections was rejected by Abbas.”

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