The Palestinian Hamas movement slammed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision on Thursday (April 29) night to delay a long-awaited Palestinian vote, calling his move “a coup.”

“This represents a coup against the path of partnership and national consensus. Our popular and national consensus cannot be pawned as collateral for the agenda of a faction,” Hamas said.

Abbas told a meeting of the Palestinian leadership on Thursday night that he was delaying the first Palestinian elections in over 15 years. The 86-year-old Palestinian president has continued to serve despite his mandate expiring in 2009.

On Friday (April 30), Hamas in the Gaza Strip organized mass rallies in support of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in light of the recent Israeli offensive, and to reject the decision to postpone the legislative elections that were scheduled to take place on the twenty-second of next May.

During the rallies that started from various mosques in the Strip in all governorates, the participants raised the banners of Hamas, and slogans affirming the support and victory of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and the Al-Mourabitounes who confront the daily Israeli attacks against them, and others affirming the rejection of postponing the elections as it is the right of the Palestinian people.
The leader of Hamas, "Abd al-Latif al-Qanoo," accused the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, of turning against the will of the people by disrupting the holding of the elections.
He should not run away from the elections after the masses of the people moved to renew the legitimacy in the Palestinian institutions and rebuild the institutions of the Authority and the PLO through the ballot boxes through a democratic electoral process.