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Abbas calls Palestinian elections for Jan 24

AFP, Ramallah
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Friday called presidential and legislative elections for January 24 in the Palestinian territories including the Gaza Strip, in a move seen as pressuring Hamas into signing a unity deal. •
The Islamist rulers of the battered coastal enclave issued a swift rejection of the move, branding it illegal and unconstitutional.
Abbas issued a decree inviting "the Palestinian people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to take part in free and direct presidential and legislative elections on Sunday January24,2010," his office said.
In the decree he instructed the election committee to prepare for the vote.
Abbas, whose presidential term expired in early 2009, had said on Tuesday he would issue a decree calling the elections, in a move apparently meant to press llamas into signing a much-delayed unity deal with his Fatah faction.
In the last parliamentary elections in January 2006, Hamas won an upset victory over the previously dominant Fatah.
Egypt has been struggling to broker a recon- ciliation agreement between the two main rival Palestinian factions for months, and this month proposed an agreement that would see new elections held in June next year.
Fatah has signed the agreement but Hamas has repeatedly postponed its official response, saying it needs more time to study the deal.
On Friday, a I lamas spokesman in Gaza City condemned the Abbas decree.
This is an illegal and unconstitutional step because Abu Mazen's (Abbas's) tenure is over and he has no right to issue any decree concerning this" election, Fawzi Barhum told AFP.
He said Abbas was making a "deliberate attempt to make (Palestinian) divisions permanent," by calling elections for January.
The bitter rift between Fatah and Hamas goes back to the start of limited Palestinian selfrule in the 1990s, when Fatah strongmen cracked down on the Islamist militant group.
Simmering divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas fighters expelled Abbas loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished and densely populated territory.
The date set for the next elections coincides with the end of the current Palestinian parliament. which is dominated by Hamas.