Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday postponed planned elections amid a dispute over voting in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and divisions in his Fatah party. Abbas announced the postponement of parliamentary elections due on May 22, and a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official later confirmed that it extended to the presidential ballot planned for July 31. The 85-year-old president blamed Israel for uncertainty about whether it would allow the Palestinian election to proceed in Jerusalem as well as in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Source: Reuters "Facing this difficult situation, we decided to postpone the date of holding legislative elections until the participation of Jerusalem and its people is guaranteed," he said in a speech on Palestinian TV. The postponement came three months after the elections were called, and on the day that campaigning was due to begin. The polls were widely seen as a response to criticism of the democratic legitimacy of Palestinian institutions, including Abbas's own presidency. The delay drew immediate criticism from political opponents and from some disappointed voters, for whom the votes would have been the first in 15 years. Abbas and his allies have been weakened by younger challengers from within his own party, and many Palestinians regard the Jerusalem issue as an excuse to avoid elections that Fatah might well lose to its Islamist rivals Hamas, as it did in the last parliamentary ballot in 2006. Hamas immediately criticised the reversal, and thousands of its supporters rallied in Gaza after Friday prayers in condemnation of the decision. "We reject this decision which violates the national consensus, and Fatah movement bears responsibility for the consequences of this position," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. After initial confusion over whether the presidential vote would also be delayed, Wasel Abu Youssef, a senior PLO member, told Reuters the postponement covered "elections in all their stages, legislative and presidential. There will not be any elections without Jerusalem."