GAZA CITY - Palestinian officials prepared Tuesday to delay partial re-elections in the Gaza Strip in order to defuse a crisis between Fatah and Hamas after the Islamist faction threatened to boycott the polls.
Officials were forced to intervene when Hamas refused to contest the new vote in three Gaza Strip municipalities and one West Bank village, ordered after the main ruling Fatah party demanded a recount in May 5 local elections.
But Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, chairman of an umbrella group of national and Islamist parties, said he would ask the local elections committee to delay the vote originally scheduled for Wednesday.
"The committee can only agree to his request because it is a national consensus," Naja told a news conference in Gaza city.
A senior electoral official admitted that the polls would probably be delayed to a later date "in the national interest and to defuse the crisis."
The partial re-vote affects 37,000 Palestinians living in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, Beit Lahia to the north and the central Bureij refugee camp, which the Islamist group Hamas won by a small majority on May 5.
"Hamas decided not to take part in what is another vote in Rafah, Beit Lahia and al-Bureij," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. "We call on our people to boycott these elections and not recognise their results."
The showdown came after Egyptian mediators spent a week in the occupied territories on a mission to defuse rumbling disagreements between the radical faction and the main party of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
Abu Zuhri reproached Fatah for insisting on the re-vote was held Wednesday and said Hamas first wanted guarantees that they would be fair.
"We agreed on certain guarantees with the Egyptian delegation and Fatah regarding the re-elections, but Fatah retreated from the agreement last night. So there are no guarantees to secure honest reelections," Abu Zurhi said.
Palestinian officials have confirmed the re-vote could affect the overall results in the three municipalities.
Fatah emerged the overall victor in the May 5 elections in more than 80 Palestinian municipalities, but requested a recount of votes in Rafah, Bureij and Beit Lahia.
Hamas's success in the polls, just months before parliamentary elections in July and the ensuing tension has seen relations between the two groups plummet.
Some Palestinian officials believe a recent spike in violence -- which has shaken a de facto truce -- was partly engineered by Hamas in the dispute.
Members of Fatah have called for the July 17 elections to be delayed, amid increasing fears that Hamas could make sweeping gains, cutting into Fatah's power base.
05/31/2005 12:22 GMT