Abu Marzouk: Hamas is not bound by Abbas’s call for elections

Abu Marzouk: Hamas is not bound by Abbas’s call for elections

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas political bureau, stated Saturday that his Movement is not bound by Mahmoud Abbas’s edict to hold elections next January, adding that Hamas has options to deal with the situation if elections were held in the West Bank.

Abu Marzouk warned the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah of the consequences of holding the elections before reaching a national consensus.

He denied that there is severance of diplomatic communications between Hamas and Egypt, which sponsors the inter-Palestinian reconciliation sessions.

The Hamas official stressed the need to sign and implement the reconciliation agreement simultaneously, and to provide the requirements of this agreement before and after it takes effect.

The official added that the signing of a reconciliation agreement must be collective because it is a national consensus document between all factions and not only Hamas and Fatah, highlighting the need for resuming the national dialog until achieving successful everlasting reconciliation.

In the same context, Dr. Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), stated Saturday that Hamas is not afraid of the coming elections, asserting that it is likely to win the upcoming legislative elections.

Dr. Dweik added that the results achieved by Hamas in some elections which it had the chance to participate in make the conditions favorable, citing as an example the recent student elections which took place in the university of Bir Zeit in which Hamas won most of the seats.

He emphasized that the political and security situation in the West Bank cannot provide even one percent of the freedom to hold fair and transparent elections with the participation of all Palestinian factions and political affiliations.

For his part, Dr. Yousuf Rizqa, the political advisor to Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya, stated that the points related to the Palestinian liberation organization and the political authority mentioned in the Egyptian reconciliation paper still need to be addressed.

Rizqa told Quds Press on Saturday that Fatah faction used the points which were deleted from the reconciliation paper to ruin the relations between Hamas and Egypt, affirming that these points were most likely to have been dropped under American pressure.

The advisor asserted that his government does not like to see national division in the Palestinian arena and wants to move forward with the reconciliation efforts but upon solid and stable foundations.