Palestinian parties to meet in Cairo on February 8 to discuss elections
Palestinian factions will meet in Cairo on February 8 to discuss this year's elections, announced several organisations, which received official invitations from Egypt.
At the meeting, originally scheduled for last month but postponed to early February, the parties will discuss the details of the process to hold legislative elections on May 22 and presidential elections on July 31. If they materialise, it will be the first time Palestinians have gone to the polls since 2006.
Fourteen factions will be present at the meeting, including the nationalist Al-Fatah party - led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - and the Islamist Hamas movement, the de facto ruler in Gaza.
The two organisations have been at loggerheads since 2007, when Hamas seized control of the strip and drove out the al-Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Authority (PNA) forces.
Attempts at reconciliation between the two have been repeated since then without success, but they have recently moved closer together and are willing to move forward to facilitate the holding of elections.
Jibril Rajoub, a member of al-Fatah's Central Committee, said the meeting in Egypt would be part of "a broad national dialogue" in which his party would attend "with an open mind".
Hamas, for its part, declared that the meeting should serve to finalise election issues, "aimed at achieving national unity" and "solidifying the Palestinian political system".
On January 15, Abbas issued a decree calling on the Palestinian population to go to the polls for the first time in 15 years. The last presidential elections were in 2005, and the last time a parliament was elected was in 2006.
According to the latest figures, some 2.5 million Palestinians are expected to vote in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
However, the implementation of the electoral process is expected to be complex due to the fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian territories, and many mechanisms are still unclear.
