Top PLO body urges Abbas to call early elections
Source: Reuters
(Updates with final statement, Hamas reaction) RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 21 (Reuters) - A key body of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) urged President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to call early national elections, a move that would deepen his split with Hamas Islamists. Abbas, who dissolved the Hamas-led government after the Islamist group took over Gaza last week, convened the PLO's key Palestine Central Council on Wednesday to rally support for a new emergency cabinet that has been welcomed in the West. The 115-strong body said in a final statement that it agreed in closed-door session that Abbas, who heads the PLO, should "secure appropriate conditions to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the nearest possible time". Palestinians vote separately for president -- who can rule by decree -- and the 133-seat Palestinian Legislative Council. The next elections are scheduled for 2009 and 2010 respectively. The PLO, which is dominated by Abbas's Fatah faction, previously led by Yasser Arafat, is moving to restore its Central Council to decision-making functions in place of the Legislative Council, officials and observers in Ramallah say. Hamas, which is outside the PLO due to disagreement on whether to recognise Israel, toppled Abbas's more secular Fatah group in 2006 legislative elections. That victory prompted a Western aid boycott and spiralling Palestinian factional strife. Hamas forces pushed Fatah from Gaza in what the Islamists called a defence of their democratic mandate. Abbas, who accused Hamas of a coup, dissolved a Palestinian coalition government formed in March and formed a new cabinet of independent allies. Hamas condemned the PCC's resolutions, describing early elections as a "coup" and saying it would aim to block them. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Dan Williams in Jerusalem)
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