Hamas is planning to hold internal elections during the first half of 2017, Hamas official Ahmed Yousef said in an interview with Ma’an yesterday.
Yousef, a former senior adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said elections for the movement’s political bureau would be held in March or April, adding that after elections for each area were held, Hamas would gather to elect a new head.
However, he said that it was “too soon to expect who would be head of the political bureau following Khaled Meshaal.”
Hamas holds internal elections every four years.
Yousef said that there was “Arab pressures” to postpone the Palestinian municipal elections which were due to be held next month. They were cancelled after a Palestinian Supreme Court ruling last week.
The decision was made after a court in the Gaza Strip stopped five Fatah-affiliated candidates from participating in the local elections in the besieged enclave, a source from the Supreme Court told Ma’an.
The Fatah-controlled Supreme Court said the decision was in response to several appeals submitted by lawyers challenging the legitimacy of elections that would not include East Jerusalem, while calling elections in the Gaza Strip “illegal”.
“Decisions are taken individually; we hope to see a change and that the elections will be a start for ending division,” Yousef added.
Meanwhile, he said Algeria had accepted a request by the movement’s political bureau member, Mousa Abu Marzouk, to allow the movement to have an official presence in the country.
He praised Algeria’s support for Palestinians saying: “Algeria’s doors have always been open for the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organisation] and Palestinian factions.”