PA links elections to Jerusalem vote: Israel not to allow polling: FM
DUBAI, Nov 16: The Palestinian presidential election will only go ahead as planned if Israel allows Palestinian residents of annexed east Jerusalem to take part
, the Palestinian Authority's interim head said on Tuesday.
"The elections will not take place if the Palestinians of Al Quds (Jerusalem) are prevented from taking part," Rawhi Fattuh said on the Dubai-based satellite channel Al Arabiya.
"The elections will go ahead with the participation of all, starting with Al-Quds, (then) the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said on Monday there was no on-site voting in east Jerusalem in the last Palestinian elections in 1996, with Arabs there voting through the post office rather than at polling booths.
"I believe it should be the same, that there will be no elections in Jerusalem," said Mr Shalom, whose country considers Jerusalem to be its undivided capital, including the eastern sector it seized in the 1967 war.
Mr Fattuh, who as speaker of parliament took over in an interim capacity, said he would not run as candidate in the election but would return to his own post after the polls.
"If it turns out that we are unable to organize elections, we will go back to the parliament which has the authority to take a decision," he said.
PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is seen as firm favourite to be chosen as the dominant Fatah faction's candidate to replace Mr Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority.
HAMAS BOYCOTT: Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not participate in January's election to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority, it was announced on Tuesday.
"The presidential election is illegal," a Hamas official told reporters as he entered talks here with the new head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas.
"This election is a continuation of the Oslo process which has already failed and is finished."
The announcement had been widely expected as Hamas and Jihad have consistently rejected the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords, which paved the way for the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
The decision is a major boost to Mr Abbas's hopes of being voted in as a replacement for Yasser Arafat, who won the first election in 1996.-AFP
