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| Middle East |
| Arafat adviser: elections in winter, but only after IDF pullback |
| 2002-05-24 |
| Palestinian general elections will be held this winter, but only after Israeli troops have withdrawn to positions they held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000, a senior Palestinian official said Friday. Oh? Is it Friday? This is the Friday position, as opposed to the Thursday position, which is different from the Wednesday position... Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was quoted on Thursday as saying the elections would be held regardless of an Israeli pullback, but his media adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said Friday that the linkage between elections and a partial Israeli withdrawal remained in place. Abu Rudeineh said Arafat's statement was due to a misunderstanding. Y'see, if you keep saying one thing after another, even if they don't make any sense, if you do eventually do something then nobody can accuse you of not doing what you said you were going to do. I think. Arafat is under growing pressure from abroad and at home to reform the corruption-ridden PA, and to unify the Palestinian security services into one agency. He has promised to hold presidential and parliamentary elections, but has yet to set a date. "The sweet by and by" is not a date. "Over my dead body" is not a date. "When hell freezes over" is not a date. Rudeineh said Friday that general elections would be held "this winter," on condition that Israeli troops withdraw to positions held before Sept. 28, 2002 [sic], and that the Palestinian residents of traditionally Arab east Jerusalem are allowed to participate - as they did in the first general elections in 1996. And Yasser gets a pony... He also said that Arafat would appoint a new, smaller Cabinet for the interim period leading up to the elections. Rudeineh would not say when the appointments will be made. The Palestinian parliament has demanded that Arafat disband the current Cabinet, targeting especially ministers suspected of corruption. But they'd have to get jobs if he did that, so that'll probably be a week before the elections, which are scheduled for see above. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |