Hamas slams Abbas' reelection to Fatah leadership
Published today (updated) 08/08/2009 20:44
www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=217639

Bethlehem - Ma'an/Agencies - Fatah will continue in a downward spiral
following the reelection of President Mahmoud Abbas to the party's
leadership, the Hamas movement said on Saturday evening.

"The reelection of Abu Mazen is the continuation of Fatah's political and
organizational downfall and a continuation of the policy of dependence on
foreign authorities from which the organization suffers," Hamas spokesman
Sami Abu Zuhri told the Hebrew-language Yedioth Ahronoth.

Sixty-five of over 2,000 delegates to the sixth Fatah congress opposed the
motion to elect Abbas, the Palestinian president and current party leader,
as head of the mainstay political movement.

The motion, voted on in the hall of the Terra Sancta School in Bethlehem,
was done by hand count. It covered the election of Abbas as head of the
party, and choice to cap the seats of the Central Committee at 18, plus the
party president and four other members to be chosen by the Central Committee
once it is formed.

Shortly before the vote took place, Abbas' supporters broke out into a
prepared poem praising him and his leadership.

Following the decision Abbas said, "I did not expect that the conference
would succeed in this way... Hamas is still carrying out its attacks against
Fatah affiliates in Gaza yet the conference succeeds and will succeed
despite them."