Palestine- Hamas' rejection fails to sway Abbas election plan 

(MENAFN - Arab News) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged on Saturday to pursue reconciliation efforts with the rival Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip even as they rejected his call for January elections.

"We are going to pursue our efforts for reconciliation" with Hamas, Abbas said a day after calling presidential and legislative elections on January 24.

Abbas issued a decree late Friday calling elections in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, in a move seen as turning up the heat on the resistance group to sign a much-delayed Egyptian-brokered deal for Palestinian unity.

But Hamas rejected the move.

"This is an illegal and unconstitutional step because Abu Mazen's (Abbas's) tenure is over and he has no right to issue any decree concerning this" election, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said on Friday.

He said Abbas was making a "deliberate attempt to make (Palestinian) divisions permanent," by calling elections for January.

On Saturday Abbas said he was determined to proceed with organizing the polls.

"The elections decree is very serious. It is not a maneuver," he told delegates of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Central Committee gathered in Ramallah.

He insisted, however, that he would not close the door on efforts brokered by Egypt to patch up deep divisions between Hamas and Fatah.

"Even if we don't succeed now, we will try again because reconciliation is in the interest of the Palestinian people," Abbas said.

Meanwhile, Hamas on Saturday accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of usurping power after he called presidential and legislative elections for January.

Abbas, whose presidential term expired in early 2009, "must be tried for usurping power," deputy Palestinian Speaker Ahmed Bahar told a news conference in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

He said that Abbas should be "brought to judicial accountability on charges of impersonating him self as the president of the Palestinian Authority."

He added that Abbas's insistence on holding elections without an agreement on Palestinian unity was in fact " a declaration of the division, and a consecration of separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank."

Late on Friday Abbas issued a decree calling elections on January 24, in a move seen as turning up the heat on Hamas to sign an Egyptian-brokered deal for Palestinian unity.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum swiftly rejected the move, branding it illegal and unconstitutional.

By Hisham Abu Taha