Diaspora excluded from vote in PA polls

Fatah's new chief Farouk Kaddoumi said Thursday voting in the Palestinian presidential election should be limited to residents of the occupied territories.

"No Palestinian living outside the West Bank and Gaza has the right to take part in the voting to select a new president for the Palestinian Authority," Kaddoumi told UPI.

Elections to select a successor for Yasser Arafat, who died in a Paris hospital last month, are scheduled for Jan. 9.

"The responsibilities of the new PA president will be confined inside the West Bank and Gaza and his political authority will be represented in the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Council," Kaddoumi stressed.

He also underscored the right of Palestinians living elsewhere to return to the Palestinian territories, stressing "no new leadership has the right to compromise on that right."

Kaddoumi denied that he had threatened to dismiss Marwan Barghouti from Fatah's ranks for running for president as an independent candidate. He did say that any Fatah member who resists or violates the decisions of Fatah's Central Committee is considered to have resigned his post.

Barghouti, the jailed West Bank Fatah leader who is serving a life sentence in Israel for terrorism, announced his candidacy at the last minute, reversing an earlier decision to back PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as Fatah's sole candidate.

© Copyright 2004 by United Press International