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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/16/AR2006121600436.html
Hamas Rejects Abbas Election Plan
[Washington Post] Scott Wilson - PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced Saturday that he has decided to call early elections, including for his own office. The decision drew a defiant response from Hamas officials, who said the party would not accept a new election less than halfway into its four-year parliamentary term, and challenged Abbas' right to call an early vote. "We were elected by the Palestinians, and we are not willing to go through with this experiment," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. It was unclear, however, whether Abbas will follow through with his decision, which would lead to general elections around the middle of next year that his deeply divided Fatah party is by no means assured of winning. A Fatah loss of Abbas' office would leave the government entirely in the hands of Hamas, a radical Islamic movement considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU, and Israel.