(CNSNews.com) – Amid continuing political turmoil in the rival Palestinian-ruled territories, Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas is expected to announce shortly that presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for January will not take place.
In Gaza, meanwhile, terrorists are sending mixed messages about a decision to stop rocket attacks against Israel. Hamas, which controls the strip, announced an end to rocket launches as the first anniversary of Israel’s military offensive against the Islamist group approaches, but at least three other Gaza-based violent factions distanced themselves from the call.
Two weeks ago, the Ramallah-based Abbas announced he would not run for the P.A. leadership position in the January 24 poll. But he now looks set to retain his position until such time as the delayed elections are held.
Abbas aides say a formal announcement of the postponement until an unspecified date will come soon. It follows a P.A. electoral commission’s advice that it would not be able to oversee elections in Gaza without Hamas’ cooperation.
P.A. officials said Abbas did not want the vote to go ahead if a large proportion of the Palestinians would be unable to take part.
Around 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs live in Gaza, which has been under Hamas control since the group ousted Abbas’ Fatah leadership in mid-2007. Another 2.3 million live in the West Bank, according to the P.A., which includes eastern Jerusalem residents in that figure.
Abbas, 74, has been P.A. chairman, leader of Fatah, and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – the multiparty body dominated by Fatah – since the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat. The Obama administration, like its predecessor, regards him as a “moderate.”
Abbas’ four-year term as P.A. chairman was to have expired on January 9 this year, but the P.A. extended his tenure for a year to enable presidential and parliamentary elections to take place simultaneously. That decision was challenged by Hamas and his political legitimacy has been questioned ever since, by Hamas and others.
Attempts, brokered by Egypt, to reconcile Fatah and Hamas have dragged out over the course of this year, with little success.
The postponement of January 2010 elections is likely to cause even greater legitimacy difficulties, since Abbas will by then have held the top leadership position for more than a year longer than his original mandate.
Abbas told the BBC’s Arabic-language service late last week that the Palestinian leadership would enact unspecified measures to ensure there would not be a constitutional vacuum once the legislature’s term, and his own already-extended term, expire on January 25, 2010.
P.A. officials have said repeatedly in recent weeks that there is no obvious successor to Abbas, and that his departure would be a disaster for the self-rule authority, possibly leading to its complete collapse.
The most popular members of Fatah, judging from the election of a new central committee at the faction’s congress in Bethlehem over the summer, are Muhammad Ghaneim, an opponent of the Oslo peace accords who, like Abbas, is in his 70s; Mahmoud al-Aloul, in his 60s, also seen as relatively hard-line; and 52-year-old
Marwan Barghouti, a radical serving five consecutive life sentences in Israel for the murder of five people in terror attacks.
Hamas leaders include the Gaza-based “prime minister” Ismail Haniyeh and “foreign minister” Mahmoud Zahar, and Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus-based chairman of the group’s political bureau.
‘Not weakness’
On Sunday, Hamas’ “armed wing,” Izzadin al-Qassam, announced a suspension of rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel, but added that it would not rule out attacks in response to Israeli military strikes.
The group said it had reached an agreement to this effect with other factions, adding that this was “not a sign of weakness” but a decision designed to be in “the national interest of the Palestinian people.”
Other Gaza-based armed groups, however, disputed that they were party to, or bound by, the supposed agreement.
The Palestinian news agency Maan identified them as the armed wings of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), as well the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent affiliate of Abbas’ Fatah.
Although Fatah is considered the “moderate” alternative to Hamas, its August congress in Bethlehem formally endorsed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as the party’s military wing.
Since 2001, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has been responsible for the deaths of more than 130 Israelis, mostly civilians, in at least 25 attacks including suicide bombings.
According to the Israeli Defense Forces, more than 250 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel since the end of the offensive against Hamas last winter.
By comparison, during 2008 more than 3,300 rocket and mortar attacks were recorded, the IDF says.
The three-week IDF operation launched last December was aimed, Israel says, at ending the years of rocket attacks.