The Palestinian central election committee formally recommended on Friday that Yasser Arafat delay general elections scheduled for January 20th, citing Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian cities.
"We met today with President Arafat and we gave him a recommendation to consider postponing Palestinian elections until a later date because of the difficulties placed by the Israeli occupation authorities and the restriction of movement," committee chairman Hanna Nasser told reporters.
He said Arafat has yet to issue the decree required to postpone the presidential and legislative elections. Arafat called elections in September under pressure at home and abroad to reform his Palestinian Authority as a step towards statehood. The first and only Palestinian elections were held in 1996, while a second ballot has been preempted by a two-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
Last week, Arafat told journalists the ballot would have to be postponed unless Israeli forces withdrew from West Bank cities reoccupied in June after a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel. Nasser told reporters: "We place full responsibility on the Israeli authorities for not being able to make the required preparations to conduct a proper and democratic election on the designated date."
Israel holds its own parliamentary election on January 28. Opinion polls project Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud party will win the most seats in the Knesset and that he will form the next government.