Palestinian PM Denies President Abbas Mandate Ending Friday
Thursday January 8th, 2009 / 15h54
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP)--Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad insisted the mandate of President Mahmoud Abbas continues after Friday, contrary to the claims of the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers.
"There are no circumstances that would allow us to speak of a vacancy in the post of president and that is the end of the debate," Fayyad told journalists.
The Islamist Hamas movement has insisted the secular president's term of office ends Friday and has vowed no longer to respect his authority.
"This debate has always been superfluous and it must stop in the conditions the Palestinian population is currently experiencing in Gaza," Fayyad said in reference to Israel's deadly offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
He insisted electoral legislation stipulates presidential and legislative elections must be simultaneous. The Palestinian parliament's term expires in January 2010.
A senior Hamas leader, Ossama Hamdan, insisted Wednesday: "Jan. 9 will be the last day of Mahmoud Abbas' presidency."
Simmering tensions between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah party burst into all-out street warfare in June 2007, when the Islamists seized the Gaza Strip and ousted forces loyal to the Western-backed president, who now only holds sway in the West Bank.
But Abbas insisted earlier this month he wouldn't use Israel's assault in the Gaza Strip to return to the Hamas-ruled territory.
"It is unthinkable we would work to have Hamas destroyed in order to take its place. We reject reunifying our homeland through violence," Abbas said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy Jan. 5. "We will never accept the use of arms in order to reach the unification of the homeland. This will only be done through dialogue."
In November a key decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organization elected Abbas president of Palestine. The move was largely symbolic in the absence of such a state, but was seen as an effort to boost Abbas' standing with Hamas.
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