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Palestinian election season begins

The Islamic militant group Hamas insists the vote take place Jan. 25, while Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas seeks a delay.

JERUSALEM - Palestinian candidates held a parade led by an actor in a Mickey Mouse costume, sang about the return of Islam and plastered the streets of the West Bank and Gaza with political posters as they kicked off their election campaign Tuesday.

Leaders of the Islamic militant group Hamas insisted the parliamentary vote must take place Jan. 25 despite an Israeli ban on voting in Jerusalem, shooting down Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' suggestion that it be delayed.

"Postponing the election will lead to a vacuum and to a dark future," Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas candidate, told reporters in Gaza. "Postponing the election is not the solution."

Abbas, whose Fatah Party is roiled by infighting, accusations of corruption and fears of an electoral drubbing, said Monday the vote could be delayed if Israel carries out its threat to bar Palestinians from voting in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians seek as the capital of a future state.

Israel says interim peace accords forbid Palestinian political activity in Jerusalem, which Israel also claims as its capital. In a compromise used during the 1996 parliamentary election and in presidential elections last year, East Jerusalem's Palestinians voted by absentee ballot in post offices.

But this election will mark the first time that Hamas - which calls for Israel's destruction and is responsible for dozens of deadly suicide bombings - will field candidates. Israel has called for the Islamic group to be disqualified.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, told a closed meeting of Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that a strong Hamas showing would spell "deep trouble" for Israel, Parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said.

An Israeli ban on Jerusalem voting would give Abbas a pretext to again delay the vote, originally scheduled for July. Israeli officials say they don't want to be blamed for a postponement and are looking for a compromise. U.S. envoys were to discuss the issue with Israeli officials this week.

Mohammed Abu Teir, No. 2 on the Hamas slate, said the election should go ahead even if Jerusalem residents must go to the West Bank to vote.

"I'd prefer to vote anywhere in the suburbs of Jerusalem rather than vote under the Israeli presence in the post offices," he said. It was the first time Hamas raised such an option.

[Last modified January 4, 2006, 01:08:07]