Hamas slams Abbas plan to dissolve Palestinian parliament
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has slammed a plan by President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the parliament, saying the move will only add to the internal divisions between the Palestinian factions.
“The decision of Abbas deepens the internal Palestinian division and destroys the Palestinian political system,” said Yehya Musa, a senior Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), on Saturday.
The statement came hours after Abbas said that he would immediately implement a Constitutional Court ruling to dissolve the PLC, a chamber dominated and led by Hamas since the party won general elections in 2006.
The move comes amid widening rifts between Abbas’ Fatah Party and Hamas as the two accuse each other of defying reconciliation attempts.
The PLC has been largely defunct over the past years. However, the Palestinian law allows its speaker to become interim president should Abbas, now 83, die in office.
Abbas said Saturday that his government was obliged to dissolve the PLC and hold parliamentary elections within six months.
However, Musa said Abbas’ announcement had no value and the PLC would go on convening its sessions in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is based and runs a local government.
“The PLC will continue working and convene as usual, regardless of Abbas' decision,” he said, adding that Abbas created the Constitutional Court, which issued the ruling on parliament dissolution, with the sole aim of neutralizing the powers of legal Palestinian institutions.
Abbas, whose reign as president has been disputed since his term expired in 2009, has repeatedly sought to pressure Hamas by reducing salaries of government workers in Gaza. However, a recent move by Qatar to bypass his office in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to provide Hamas with huge cash to pay its workers, seems to have specifically angered the Palestinian leader.
Unlike Abbas who has an ill reputation of collaborating with Israel on security and political issues, Hamas boasts of its three wars with the Tel Aviv regime since it took power in Gaza in 2007.
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