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Dahlan complicates Abbas' plans for Palestinian elections

The upcoming Palestinian elections are expected to stir a new confrontation between Fatah and Mohammed Dahlan’s movement should the reconciliation efforts exerted by some Arab countries fail to unify the Fatah movement.
RAMALLAH, -: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas (L) stands with Mohammad Dahlan, a strongman from the Fatah party, as they watch US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leave the Palestinian Authority headquarters or Muqataa in the West Bank city of Ramallah, 25 March 2007. Rice urged Israelis and Palestinians to work together on a common peace agenda after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. AFP PHOTO / JAMAL ARURI (Photo credit should read JAMAL ARURI/AFP via Getty Images)

RAMALLAH, West Bank — As soon as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued Jan. 15 the presidential decree setting the date for the general elections a clash erupted between Fatah and the movement led by dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan.

A day after the presidential decree was issued, Sufian Abu Zaida, a leader in Dahlan’s Democratic Reformist Current, expressed his current’s intent to participate, alongside the Fatah movement, in the elections with a unified list.

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