Middle East Monitor / August 2, 2022
A senior Fatah official in Hebron said on Monday that the cancellation of last year’s parliamentary election by the movement’s leadership was an attempt to retain its own interests based on corruption, Al-Resalah has reported.
Tayseer Abu Sneeneh told the newspaper that linking the issue of carrying out the election with Jerusalem “was a fake pretext to avoid going to the polls.” He insisted that there would have been several ways to have the Palestinians in Jerusalem participate in the election without the agreement of the Israeli occupation authorities.
The Fatah official added that the Palestinian population should unite in order to make change. “It is impossible to make change without unity among the popular currents who want to change the political leadership,” he pointed out.
At the same time, Abu Sneeneh emphasized the importance of making progress on the political level as the international powers are currently working to impose a new president on the Palestinians, someone who is backed by Israel and the US.
In closing, he criticized the latest measures taken by the Palestinian Authority to minimize the role of the PLO by taking up its powers.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas cancelled the Palestinian parliamentary election last year under the pretext that the Palestinians in Jerusalem would not have been able to cast their votes under the occupation. This was seen widely as a move to prevent his political rivals in Hamas from making electoral gains.
