BICOM

A senior Hamas official has said that the group may not participate in upcoming Palestinian municipal elections if the Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to arrest Hamas activists.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mahmoud al-Zahar said that Hamas has many issues “about Fatah [the dominant faction in the PA] due to the continual arrests of [Hamas] leaders in the West Bank”.

He added: “The elections cannot take place if this issue continues.”

Al-Zahar also claimed that “there are conflicts within Fatah preventing it until now from forming lists [of candidates]” and that they are “talking about the possibility of postponing the elections”.

During the past several weeks, the rival Hamas and Fatah factions have accused the other of arresting its activists in an attempt to disrupt their election campaign. Hamas has also condemned a decree by PA President and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas, which would guarantee a minimum number of nine local councils with a Christian majority and council head.

Last month, Hamas made a surprise announcement that it will field a full list of candidates in the upcoming Palestinian municipal elections, being contested in 391 areas in the West Bank and 25 in Gaza. A provisional date of 8 October has been set for the election. Hamas did not contest the last Palestinian municipal vote in 2012. There have been no elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006.

Ever since Hamas violently seized the Gaza Strip from the PA in 2007, relations between Fatah and Hamas have been bitter. There have been several attempts at reconciliation between the two factions since then, but none have come to fruition. Hamas remains in exclusive control of the Gaza Strip, while the PA is the sole authority in Palestinian areas of the West Bank.