Abbas to go ahead with vote despite Hamas rejection

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas pledged on Saturday to pursue reconciliation efforts with the rival Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip even as they rejected his call for January elections. We are going to pursue our efforts for reconciliation with Hamas, Abbas said a day after calling presidential and legislative elections on January 24. Abbas issued a decree late Friday calling elections in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, in a move seen as turning up the heat on the Islamist group to sign a much-delayed Egyptian-brokered deal for Palestinian unity. But Hamas -- which trounced Abbas's secular Fatah faction in the last parliamentary elections in January 2006 -- rejected the move. This is an illegal and unconstitutional step because Abu Mazen's (Abbas's) tenure is over and he has no right to issue any decree concerning this election, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told.