RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories, Dec 23, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Palestinian
president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday he intended to dissolve the largely
defunct Palestinian parliament controlled by his rivals Hamas following a
court decision ordering the move.
Abbas did not say when the Ramallah-based Palestinian Constitutional Court
issued the ruling that includes holding elections within six months of the
Palestinian Legislative Council being dissolved.
“The issue reached the Constitutional Court which issued a verdict to
dissolve the legislative council and call for legislative elections within
six months, and this is what we must implement immediately,” Abbas said when
meeting members of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah.
The step would allow Abbas to further pressure Hamas, the Islamist movement
that runs the Gaza Strip.
Though the parliament has not met since 2007, when Hamas seized control of
the Gaza Strip, Palestinian law allows for its speaker to act as interim
president should 83-year-old Abbas die in office.
Hamas won the last parliamentary elections in 2006 in a landslide,
resulting in an electoral dispute with Abbas’s Fatah.
The split between them persists and has defied several reconciliation
attempts.
Abbas, whose Fatah is based in the occupied West Bank, has sought to
pressure Hamas in recent months by reducing salaries in the Gaza Strip, which
is under an Israeli blockade, among other moves.
His administration has opposed recent arrangements that have seen Israel
allow Qatar to provide millions of dollars (euros) in aid for salaries and
fuel in the Gaza Strip, bypassing Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.
Egypt has been seeking to reconcile Hamas and Fatah, but a range of issues
have kept the two sides apart, including Hamas’s refusal to disarm its
military wing.
Abbas’s term was meant to expire in 2009, but he has remained in office in
the absence of elections.