Why hasn't Abbas called for a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council?
Some Palestinians wonder why President Abbas refuses to convene the Palestinian Legislative Council; others wonder why he would bother, since he has assumed executive, legislative and judicial power in the West Bank.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Despite repeated calls for President Mahmoud Abbas to convene a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the Palestinian people are still waiting.
In the most recent bids to get Abbas' attention, 18 MPs in the council — the majority of which are from Fatah — addressed a Nov. 4 letter to Abbas asking him to hold a PLC session. Also, the Hamas parliamentary bloc in the Gaza Strip organized a sit-in outside PLC headquarters in Gaza.
Najat Abu Bakr, a Fatah MP and one of the letter's signatories, told Al-Monitor, “The letter was delivered to President Abbas and the head of Fatah's parliamentary bloc in the PLC, Azzam al-Ahmad, but they ignored it and did not reply.”
Yet in a recent interview with Al-Monitor, PLC Vice President Hassan Khreisheh called the letter "an important development."
