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RAMALLAH/GAZA, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) consensus government's decision on Tuesday to postpone for four months the Palestinian municipal elections has deepened feuds between Islamic Hamas movement and Fatah Party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The postponement allows Gaza and the West Bank to unify legal and judiciary systems, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said when addressing his cabinet in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
The decision came one day after the Palestinian Central Elections Commission (CEC) suggested a six-month postponement to President Abbas on Monday.
A ruling of the Ramallah-based Supreme Court decided Monday to allow holding the municipal elections in the West Bank only and excluded the Gaza Strip, which has been under Hamas rule since 2007.
The court said that Hamas has changed the legal and judiciary systems during the last decade.
In June, the cabinet called on the Palestinians and CEC to prepare for holding the municipal elections in 391 councils in the West Bank and 25 councils in the Gaza Strip.
However, the Supreme Court decided in September to halt all preparation for the election scheduled on Oct. 8, until it takes its final decision.
"Within the coming four months, a proper legal and judiciary atmosphere has to be ensured to guarantee holding the municipal elections in all councils in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in one day," said a statement issued at the end of the cabinet meeting.
Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, rejected on Tuesday the postponement.
"The movement insists on holding it on its proper date and time," Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman, told a news briefing held in Gaza, adding that it is "a kind of confusion as well as evasion of the elections."
Abu Zuhri held rival Fatah Party "fully responsible for these decisions," saying that Fatah didn't respect laws and the decisions of the CEC.
He stressed that Hamas won't accept "these absurd decisions and (they are) plying with the Palestinian process of democracy."
The last unified municipal elections held in Gaza, West Bank and east Jerusalem was in 2005, where Hamas won in most of the municipal councils in Gaza and West Bank. In 2012, municipal elections were only held in the West Bank, while Hamas decided to boycott it.
Osama Qawasmi, Fatah party spokesman in the West Bank, said in an emailed press statement that the postponement "shows President Abbas and the Palestinian government is concerned with unifying the Palestinian territories, which were divided due to the internal split."
He accused Hamas of obstructing the elections, saying that "Hamas had canceled several Fatah lists in the Gaza Strip and claimed that the lists were not meeting the legal terms of their courts there."
The crisis of holding the municipal elections reflects the crisis of the Palestinian political system, an absence of the internal accordance and a missing of a clear vision to all parties, said George Jaqman, a Palestinian think-tank, director of the Institution for Democratic Studies.
"Postponing the elections was not only due to differences and feuds between Fatah and Hamas, but also due to internal differences in Fatah itself," he said, adding that he thinks the local elections would be postponed indefinitely amid deepened internal Palestinian feuds.
