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Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19888/palestinian-prime-minister-shtayyeh-lies
Palestinian Prime Minister Shtayyeh Lies to U.S. Delegation about Palestinian Democracy
(Gatestone Institute) Bassam Tawil - Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh met with a visiting U.S. Democratic Congressional delegation in his office in Ramallah on August 8. During the meeting, Shtayyeh blamed Israel for the fact that the Palestinians have not held general elections for nearly two decades. The real reason that Palestinians have not been able to hold parliamentary and presidential elections is the ongoing power struggle between the PA and Hamas. In the last Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006, Hamas won a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, yet PA leaders never accepted the results of the vote. After numerous attempts, elections were to be held in 2021, but less than a month before the vote, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas called them off. Palestinian and Arab political analysts said the reason was because Abbas feared his own Fatah faction would again lose to Hamas. Ramzy Baroud, editor of The Palestine Chronicle, wrote, "The truth is Abbas canceled the elections because all credible public opinion polls showed that this month's legislative vote would have decimated the ruling clique of his Fatah party....If this scenario were to occur, a whole class of millionaires who turned the Palestinian struggle into a lucrative industry, generously funded by 'donor countries,' was at risk of losing everything."