RAMALLAH, Saturday, December 28, 2019 (WAFA) – Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said today that the president and the leadership are determined to hold legislative and presidential elections as soon as possible, but not at any price.

“Holding elections is important and necessary to consolidate democracy in the Palestinian political life and to end internal differences through the ballot box, but not at the expense of Jerusalem, its holy places and its Arab identity, which is in the heart of every Palestinian and Arab,” said Abu Rudeineh.

“President Abbas has announced before the United Nations General Assembly that he will call for general elections to assure every one of the seriousness of the official Palestinian stance towards free and transparent elections that the entire world will be witness to,” added Abu Rudeineh. “The ball is now in the court of the international community to pressure Israel to accept the participation of our people in Jerusalem as candidates and voters in their holy city as a natural right guaranteed by all international resolutions and law.”

He said that “attempts by some [parties] to claim that the call for elections is a result of international pressures are nothing more than unfounded illusions because the decision to hold the elections was made in the best interest of our people and has been welcomed at the Arab and international levels. The president has repeatedly stressed for years the necessity of going back to the people and holding elections as a way out of the Palestinian division.”

He added: “Pressures are being put on the Israeli side to accept the will of the international community that considers East Jerusalem as part of the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 and to abide by international legitimacy which stipulates that Jerusalem and its Palestinian residents are part of our people and should have the right to freely elect their representative as was the case in 1996, 2005 and 2006. Without Jerusalem there will be no elections regardless of the price.”

Abu Rudeineh concluded by saying that “the big battle is to preserve Jerusalem and its holy places, uphold the independent Palestinian national decision, and adhere to the national constants. These positons have foiled the deal of the century and will thwart all other schemes against the Palestinian cause.”

His statement came in response to calls by parties on President Mahmoud Abbas to issue a decree on holding legislative and presidential elections, irrespective of whether Israel would allow them in occupied Jerusalem, the city Palestinians consider as capital of their de jure state.

M.N./M.K.