Hamas criticizes planned West Bank elections

Hamas on Wednesday criticized Palestinian Authority plans for local elections in the West Bank in October, saying they should be held at the same time as a general poll.

The Islamist group’s spokesperson Salah Bardawil said PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to conduct local elections in the West Bank “is not consistent with the terms of reconciliation, which state that local, legislative, national council, and presidency elections are part of one package and are a product of this reconciliation.”

He added that “it is wrong to focus on the part and ignore the whole, avoiding other major necessities for the reconciliation arising from national consensus.”

Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement which rules the West Bank, insisted in a recent meeting with independent Palestinian figures that local elections would take place in the region on October 20.

But Hamas has rejected the call, saying that the polls should be held across the West Bank and Gaza, warning that failure to do so threatens ongoing reconciliation between the two parties.

Bardawil added that “holding local elections in the West Bank alone, excluding the Gaza Strip and Hamas’ participation, simply means conducting internal elections for the Fatah movement to redeploy in the country that it already controls.”

“This will only reinforce the image of the Authority that it is oppressing freedoms in the West Bank, as well as cooperating extensively with the occupying forces against the people and their resistance,” he added.

Palestinian Authority forces have cracked down on anti-Fatah protests in recent months, with activists accusing them of brutality.