On Saturday, the Palestinian president delayed a vote amid disarray in his party. From the Christian Science Monitor:
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision over the weekend to postpone Palestinian parliamentary elections raised concern immediately about a confrontation with militant Hamas, poised to trounce Mr. Abbas’s ruling Fatah party in a vote scheduled for next month.
But after months of promising to hold the elections on July 17, the Palestinian president’s reversal actually highlights the deepening tensions within his own party, analysts and officials say. It’s expected now that the vote will be held this fall.
“[The delay] is not out of fear for Hamas, as so many people say,” says Fatah lawmaker Ghazi Hanineyeh. “We are afraid of ourselves.”
Founded by the late Yasser Arafat as the umbrella political party that galvanized Palestinian resistance to Israel, Fatah has unraveled into a loose alliance of rival factions tainted by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Delaying the vote could give Abbas enough time to reform the party and avert collapse when it faces Hamas in the legislative vote, analysts say.
The crisis gripping Fatah was evident in Nablus Sunday as members of its armed wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, raided Palestinian government offices to demand jobs in the Palestinian Authority’s security services, the Associated Press reported…