Palestinian Cabinet To Resign Monday

The Middle East domino effect continues, as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (pictured) will offer the resignation of his cabinet to President Mahmoud Abbas Monday.

The PLO, which groups the main Palestinian nationalist movements but not Hamas, has since 2004 been led by Abbas, whose mandate as president expired in January 2009 but was extended until new polls to avoid a political vacuum.

“The executive committee has decided to start preparations for presidential and parliamentary elections in the coming months… no later than September,” the PLO’s Yasser Abed Rabbo told journalists on Saturday.

Hamas immediately rejected the latest elections plan. “This procedure is invalid because president Abbas has no legitimacy and is not fit to organise such elections,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.

Abbas’s government last week also called local elections for July 9, the first Palestinian vote since 2006. But the Hamas rulers of Gaza vowed to ignore that decision, limiting the poll to the West Bank.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.