Palestinian parliamentary election to be held in July

cctv.com 01-11-2005 14:47

The Palestinian parliamentary election will be held in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in July, six months after the presidential election, the acting PNA chairman announced on Saturday.

"Palestinians will hold the parliamentary election on July 17," Rawhi Fatouh told reporters, one day before the presidential election.

"A presidential decree on the matter would be issued, and details of the decree would be published on Palestinian newspapers on Sunday," he said.

"The door would be opened for candidates to register on June 5, and as of June 5, the process of registering to run for the election would begin," he said, adding an election campaign would

run till July 17.

The 88-member Palestinian Legislative Council is the parliament of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

The previous legislative election took place in the Palestinian territories in January, 1996, when late leader Yasser Arafat was elected as chairman of the Palestinian National Authority and 87 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were elected by Palestinian residents living in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Hamas' spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri had said that Hamas decided to run in the legislative election, but decided to boycott the presidential election because it is an outcome of the Oslo accords signed in 1993.

He said Hamas wanted both presidential and legislative elections to be held at the same time, adding Hamas agreed to participate in the legislative election on condition that the council would not be an outcome of the Oslo accords.

The presidential election will be held on Sunday to choose a successor to Arafat. Mahmoud Abbas, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, is the front-runner in

the run-up to the election.

Editor:Hu Hang  Source:Xinhua News Agency