Abbas mulls postponing PLC election to change voting law

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the elections committee overseeing parliamentary elections to prepare for the possibility that the January 25 elections will be postponed.

Senior PA officials confirmed to Haaretz that although no official announcement has been made, there is an intention to postpone the elections by several weeks.

The officials also said that the new Palestinian elections law will be changed in the near future, from a mixed system, in which half of the 132 members are chosen in regional elections and the other half in individual races under the proportional method, to a system in which all seats are to be won by the proportional method.

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced several times in recent weeks that the elections will take place as scheduled, but he also said this was dependent on "Israel not interfering with the course of the elections." Abbas' words were understood as preparing for a possible postponement.

The officials added that Fatah is behind the initiative to delay and change the election system, having failed to overcome internal disputes and complete primaries to determine the movement's list of candidates for the legislative elections. Fatah primaries were scheduled for early last month, then postponed to the beginning of this month and are now expected at the end of this week.

The update to the elections committee regarding possible postponement stems from the fact that the current timetable requires parties to present their candidates in another few days, something that Fatah is unlikely to manage.

Several prominent figures have recently begun campaigning, including Jibril Rajoub, former head of the Preventive Security Service, who is running in the Hebron region, and would-be candidates for the Jerusalem region from Fatah's central committee.

	A Palestinian holding a rifle at a pro-Syrian demonstration by the Islamic Jihad in Gaza on Friday.
	Photo by: Reuters