Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, has proposed to hold Palestinian legislative elections four or five months after the presidential elections due to be held on Jan. 9, a senior official revealed on Wednesday.

Zeyad Abu Amer, former minister of culture and a member of the highest committee that consists of 13 political factions and powers, including the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), revealed the proposal to reporters.

The proposal was made in a meeting on Tuesday night in Gaza between Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, and representatives of Hamas and Jihad, said Abu Amer, adding the two Islamic opposition movements told Abbas that they will not participate in the upcoming presidential elections.

Right after Yasser Arafat passed away last Thursday, Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Speaker Rawhi Fattuh was nominated by the new leadership as a temporary president for 60 days, according to the charter and basic law.

The leadership also decided to hold presidential elections on Jan. 9, 2005 to elect a new president for the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

"Most probably, Hamas and Islamic Jihad won't participate in any presidential elections, and insisted to form a unified national leadership to be a reference to the leading corporations instead," said Abu Amer.

After the meeting with Abbas, a senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Azzahar said that holding presidential elections without holding legislative elections at the same time on Jan. 9 "would be divided and illegal."

"They (Hamas and Jihad) don't want to participate in the presidential elections, but they vowed that they won't call upon the Palestinian residents to boycott elections," said Abu Amer.

He added: "During the meeting Abu Mazen told Hamas and Jihad leaders ... this is the basic law in any country in the world to go for presidential elections sixty days after the death of the president, and I'm implementing law."

Abu Mazen and the representatives of the Islamic factions agreed to meet again to continue their discussions on issues related to elections and forming the unified national leadership, Abu Amer said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2004)