Abbas announces winning the Palestinian Presidency

The executive chairman of the PLO and candidate of the Palestine National Liberation Movement ( Fatah) announced winning the presidential elections which took place on Sunday after opinion polls expected his winning by a large margin over his rivals following closure of voting ballots.

He promised before his supporters who gathered in Ramullah to celebrate his winning to work for establishing the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as a capital. He said that what he called "smaller Jihad (struggle) is finished and greater Jihad has already started." He indicates that hard tasks are waiting for achieving security and prosperous life and freedom for the Palestinian people and the establishment of the Palestinian state.

The Palestinian authority, through its minister of negotiations affairs Saeb Oreikat described Abbas's winning as a victory for continuity and renewal and considered by former minister of the internal security affairs Muhammad Dahlan as a an authorization for Abu mazin despite all Israeli obstacles.

For its part, the Islamic Jihad movement which boycotted the elections said that Abbas's wining of the elections was expected. The leading figure in the movement Khaled al-Batash called on Abu Mazin to start arranging the Palestinian house in order to form a united leadership.

He stressed that his movement will deal with Abu Mazin the same it did with its predecessor Yasser Arafat, noting that the results of the elections do not give a mandate for Mahmoud Abbas.

The Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, refused to comment on the elections before the issuance of the final results. Earlier Hamas announced it is ready to deal with the elected president whoever, despite its rejection of these elections.

Meantime, the celebration of Fatah's movement for the winning of its candidate Mahmoud Abbas in the presidential elections came after the selection of votes and after two opinion polls showed him winning at a majority of 66% of the votes, followed by Mustafa al-Barghouthi who got 19% of the votes.

The two opinion polls were carried out by the Palestinian center for political and survey researches which is supervised by the political analyst Khalil al-Shaqaqi and Beir Zeit University.

The ballot centers were closed after the voting was extended for two hours because of obstacles placed by the occupation forces. The central election committee announced that a turnout rate was observed at 70% of the total number of registered voters.

For his part, the former US President Jimmy carter whose national institute supervises the elections announced in a statements that the election process proceeded in a good way in the Palestinian areas, except Jerusalem where the Israeli authorities placed obstacles before the voters.