Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas must form a government aimed at Palestinian national reconciliation after the resignation of Premier Salam Fayyad.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas must form a government aimed at Palestinian national reconciliation after the resignation of Premier Salam Fayyad, a high-ranking member of his party said on Monday.

"The president must hold consultations with Palestinian movements to form a national unity government and set a date for elections," Azzam al-Ahmed, a leader of Abbas's Fatah party, told the official Voice of Palestine radio.

The Palestinian elections commission said on Friday it was "ready to carry out elections if the order is issued by the presidency," after releasing the results of what it called a successful drive to register more voters in the West Bank and Gaza.

More than 1.86 million Palestinians, or 82.1 percent of the electorate, are now registered, it said.

The timing of the announcement -- followed a day later by Fayyad's resignation -- was "favorable to discussions on forming a national unity government," said Ahmed, who is in charge of reconciliation with Hamas.

"Under the law, the president has two weeks to choose a person tasked with forming a new government" which itself must take place within five weeks, he said.

Fatah and Hamas signed a reconciliation deal in Cairo in 2011, pledging to set up an interim consensus government of independents that would pave the way for legislative and presidential elections within 12 months.

But implementation of the deal stalled over the make-up of the interim government, and another deal signed on February 2012 by Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Doha, which intended to overcome outstanding differences.