OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party would defeat the rival Islamist faction Hamas if a legislative election were held now, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.
Discontent with Hamas over slow-moving Palestinian unity talks and Israel's ban on Gaza reconstruction aid have led to a sharp decline in the Islamist group's popularity according to the survey conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre (JMCC.)
The poll showed Fatah would win 38.5 percent of the vote compared to 18.8 percent for Hamas, with the remainder going to smaller factions.
In the 2006 election, Hamas won 74 parliamentary seats to 45 for Fatah.
According to the poll, 26.5 percent of those surveyed blamed Israel for the deadlock in the Hamas-Fatah dialogue while 23.5 percent pointed a finger at Hamas and 15.5 percent said Fatah was responsible.
Only 17.8 percent of Palestinians trust Abbas, but he is still the most trusted Palestinian personality, followed by the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyah, with 14.8 percent, the poll showed.
Abbas has said he plans to call a general election in January 2010 at the end of the mandate of the current Hamas-dominated legislature. |
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Reconciliation After 18 months of uneasy coexistence, Hamas violently ousted Fatah from the Gaza Strip when it seized power in the coastal enclave in June 2007.
The two parties have since made several attempts at reconciliation, and launched a new round of talk in Cairo on Sunday.
A majority of Palestinians -- 52.1 percent -- believe the reconciliation talks will fail while only 37 percent think they will succeed.
According to the poll, 26.5 percent of those surveyed blamed Israel for the deadlock in the Hamas-Fatah dialogue while 23.5 percent pointed a finger at Hamas and 15.5 percent said Fatah was responsible.
Asked if they saw any change in the U.S. approach to an eventual Middle East peace deal, close to 50 percent of respondents said there was no improvement, while almost 41 percent said there was some improvement.
Forty-eight percent said they had not changed their opinion of U.S. Middle East policy after President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world on June 4, while almost 38 percent said they were more optimistic and 9.5 percent were more pessimistic. |
