RAMALLAH, (West Bank) Dec 9: The executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization recommended Saturday that president Mahmud Abbas call early parliamentary and presidential elections to resolve a spiralling political crisis, PLO officials said.

“The executive committee, chaired by Abbas, decided to call on Abbas to hold early parliamentary and presidential elections,” executive committee member Saleh Rafaat said.

“This decision came after the failure of the dialogue to form a national unity government with the Hamas movement and is the result of the ongoing political and economic siege against the Palestinian people,” he added.

The ruling Hamas movement, which won a stunning upset in a parliamentary vote less than a year ago, slammed the decision, calling it “a clear coup against democracy.”

”The goal of this decision is to kick Hamas out of the Palestinian political scene,” the chief of the Hamas bloc of lawmakers, Khalil al-Hiyya said.

“This decision is not in the national interest and will only make the situation more tense.”Officials said Abbas would formally announce his decision to call for early elections in an address to the Palestinian people in the coming days.

But Abbas said that if Hamas were to soften its stance and agree to form a unity government, early elections would not be necessary, according to PLO executive committee member Mustapha Barghuti.

“If they form a national unity government they can end the siege against the Palestinian people, and in that case there will be no need for early elections,” Barghuti said.

Hamas in recent days has said the absence of such a provision prohibits holding early polls, while Abbas's entourage says that such an election can be held since there is no passage specifically prohibiting it.

The European Union and the United States have frozen aid to the Palestinian Authority ever since the Hamas-led government took power in March two months after its upset parliamentary election victory.—AFP