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Hamas Says Contributed to Election Success
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“We
just boycotted the elections, but did not ask people not to vote.
We could have publicly asked our people to do so,” Al-Zahhar
said.
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By
Mustafa el-Sawwaf, Yasser Al Banna, IOL Correspondents
GAZA,
January 10 (IslamOnline.net) – The position taken by the Palestinian
resistance movement Hamas towards the Palestinian presidential
elections contributed to the smooth success of the polls, a leading
Hamas figure said.
“Hamas
has worked to make the elections a success so as to make use of the
experience in the coming (municipal) elections,” Mahmoud Al-Zahar
told IslamOnline.net late Sunday, January 9.
PLO
Executive Committee Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, was
formally declared the new Palestinian president Monday, January 10.
“Had
we wanted to undermine Abu Mazen’s chances, we would have vied in
the elections and secured a major portion of the votes,” Al-Zahar
said.
“We
just boycotted the elections, but did not ask people not to vote. We
could have publicly asked our people to do so.”
Hamas
said it was illegal to hold presidential elections under the umbrella
of the Oslo Accords.
The
Hamas leader further said that his movement did not support any of the
six candidates who challenged Fatah's Abbas.
“We
have thousands of reasons preventing us from supporting any of them.
We did not meet any of them, to avoid sending a wrong message to the
people to vote for him.”
Some
reports have talked about Hamas secretly supporting Abbas's nearest
rival Mustafa Barghuti, who won some 19.5 of the votes.
Mandate
Al-Zahar,
meanwhile, rejected the notion that Abu Mazen’s victory means he was
given a mandate from the Palestinian people on the issue of
demilitarizing the Intifada.
“If
Abu Mazen wants an authorization, he has to come up with a way to ask
the Palestinian refugees around the world, not just those in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
“He
said it was only internal elections, so, it can not be considered an
authorization from all Palestinians.”
The
Hamas leader said the winner “is only a chairman of the Palestinian
Authority. It is not a presidential election, but rather one to run
the internal affairs of the PA.”
Immediately
after the declaration of Abu Mazen's victory, calls poured in from
Israel and the US to put an end to what both described as
“terrorist” Palestinian groups.
The
two allies insist on labeling the legitimate resistance of the
Palestinian people against Israel's occupation as terrorism.
The
issue of the
military aspect of the Intifada has recently taken central
stage with the majority of Palestinian experts and analysts believing
the decision rests only with the people who bear the brunt of Israeli
daily aggressions.
Replying
to a question on Hamas's possible reaction in case Abu Mazen asked the
resistance to lay down arms, Al-Zahar said, "the answer is
simple; we'd ask him who would protect the Palestinians against
Israeli practices? If he has an answer, we'll sure join him in
whatever he does.”
Al-Zahar
further added that the Palestinian people would be the first to oppose
the idea of disarming resistance groups.
“Our
arms are only used for resistance.”
Abu
Mazen sees negotiations as the only means of dealing with the Israeli
occupation, citing the impossibility of driving Israeli forces out of
the occupied lands by force.
Political
Participation
On
the possibility of Hamas joining the coming Palestinian government,
Al-Zahar did not rule it out, but he said it would all depend on the
government’s agenda.
“Hamas
is still contemplating the possibility of contesting in the coming
legislative elections.”
Acting
president Rawhi Fattuh announced Saturday, January 8, that
parliamentary elections will be held in the Gaza Strip and West Bank
in July.
Hamas’s
longstanding position has always been the insistence on holding
general elections across the occupied Palestinian territories,
encompassing presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections.
On
December 23, thousands of Palestinian voters flocked to polling
stations across the West Bank, to cast their ballot in the first stage
of a landmark municipal elections, the first in almost three decades.
Abu
Mazen's Fatah won the elections with a slight margin over Hamas,
proving the two remain the main players on the Palestinian arena.
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