The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or parliament, drafted a bill on Thursday calling for holding presidential, parliamentarian and municipal elections within one year, Palestinian officials said.
Chief of the PLC Political Committee Zeyad Abu Amer told Xinhua that the PLC decided to discuss the bill and vote on it at a special session to be held in the West Bank city of Ramallah next week.
The bill, which also include the PNA reform, was drafted after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave a speech to the parliament, calling for starting as immediate as possible reforms of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
In his speech to the PLC on Wednesday, Arafat said that he supported reforms in the administrative and military structures of the Palestinian Authority, and told the legislators to come up with the proposed reforms.
It is believed that the PLC would overwhelmingly pass the bill, Abu Amer said, adding that if approved, the bill will become a resolution and would be obligatorily implemented in time.
The bill was prepared at a meeting of the PLC special committee, which consists of deputy PLC head, Ibrahim Abu Naja, civil rights activist Hanan Ashrawi and lawmakers from Gaza, Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Apart from the elections, the meeting also discussed the number of PNA ministers, the creation of the position of prime minister, and separation of power between government institutions and the apparatus of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Abu Amer said.
The previous and also the only elections were held in 1996, with the PLC and the PNA chairman elected to serve until May 1999, the expiration date for the interim agreement signed by the Palestinians with Israel, as set out in the Oslo accords.
Since there was no permanent agreement in place by then, the office terms of the Palestinian parliament and leadership were extended.
(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2002)
