Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended primary elections of his ruling Fatah movement on Tuesday over widespread fraud in Gaza and the West Bank, a party official said.

The primaries, ahead of a January parliamentary election in which the resistance group Hamas poses a strong challenge, were Fatah's first. They have been seen as a key step for Abbas to assert his control.

Fatah cancelled its first-ever primary election in Gaza after armed men attacked polling stations, embarrassing Abbas, who has not succeeded in restoring order in Gaza as he faces a stiff electoral challenge from Hamas.

The vote onMonday was a democratic reform considered crucial to removing the taint of corruption from the party, ahead of next year's poll.

Many young Fatah activists, long frozen out of power by entrenched party leaders, insisted that transparent primaries determine the party's legislative slate rather than secret back-room negotiations.

But disorder and violence upset the voting and led to its cancellation.

At some of the roughly 190 Fatah polling stations, many voters found that their names were not on the registration lists or that they had been mistakenly registered at the wrong station.

Fatah officials said it was their first experience holding a primary, and they had only a short amount of time to compile lists of the 200,000 eligible voters in Gaza. 

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian members of the Fatah movement search for their names to vote in the group's primaries in Gaza November 28, 2005. (Reuters)