PA cabinet calls elections for July 9

The Palestinian Authority cabinet decided on Tuesday to hold local elections on July 9, in what will be the first time voters have gone to the polls since 2006.

It will mark the second attempt to hold a municipal vote, after July 17, 2010 elections were called off only weeks before they were scheduled to take place.

"The cabinet decided during its meeting today to hold local elections on Saturday, July 9, and charged the elections committee with making the necessary preparations," PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib said, reading from an official statement.

In 2010, PA officials said the vote was called off because Hamas officials had refused to participate, but the decision from Gaza had been made months before the scheduled date. Leftist parties had accused the PA and Fatah of canceling the vote because of an increase in support for several united leftist lists.

Hamas on Tuesday reiterated its refusal to participate in polls run by the Ramallah-based authority, which is dominated by the rival Fatah movement, meaning the elections are likely to be limited to the West Bank.

"These elections are not valid because they are called for by the Palestinian Authority and the government and are devoid of legitimacy," spokesman Fawzi Barhum told Agence France-Presse in Gaza City.

"We in Hamas will not participate in this farce and will not recognize the result of it."

The last time the Palestinians went to the polls was in 2006 for legislative elections, which Hamas won by a landslide.

Since January 2009, when Mahmud Abbas's four-year term as president expired, Hamas has refused to recognize the authority of his government. Abbas' term in office has been indefinitely extended pending new elections.

Last week, prime minister Salam Fayyad said local polls would be held "this year" and that it was time to start preparing for a general election, prompting another denunciation from Hamas.

Hamas says there can be no fresh vote without reconciliation with the rival Fatah party, which is headed by Abbas and dominates the Palestinian Authority.

The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are separated by Israeli territory and are ruled by rival administrations.

The Ramallah government had called a general election for January 2010 but backed down after Hamas refused to hold parallel polls in Gaza.

A year after winning the 2006 elections, Hamas ousted its Fatah rivals from the Gaza Strip following a week of bloody street battles, bringing to a head many years of bitter rivalry between the two movements.

Local elections were last held across the occupied Palestinian territories in 2005.

Fayyad's announcement that the PA would start preparing for a general election was made as massive anti-government protests swept through Egypt, calling for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.

An earlier wave of mass protests in Tunisia succeeded in forcing out president Zine El Abdine Ben Ali, sending shock waves across the Middle East and prompting a number of regional governments to make hasty changes in a bid to avoid a similar fate back home.