President Mohammad Abbas has been given the authority to bypass parliament becau

The outgoing parliament in the Palestinian territories has voted to give new powers to tile President Mohammad Abbas. The move has been met with anger from the militant group Hamas which won the Palestinian elections last month. President Mohammad Abbas’s Fatah Party suffered a stunning electoral defeat at the hands of Hamas. But in what was almost their final act before the new Hamas dominated legislature is sworn in, Fatah members have boosted the president’s position. They’ve given him the authority to bypass parliament and appoint judges to the constitutional court. Hamas has been outraged. It regards Fatah as having used the old unrepresentative legislature’s dying moments to strengthen the president’s hand for cynical party political aims.