What Palestinians should do now
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 18 November 2004
At a minimum, fair elections require international intervention to protect the Palestinians from the occupier and ensure all candidates have fair access to PA-controlled media and are free from intimidation whether by Israel or the PA. The danger is that snap elections in the West Bank and Gaza, under Israel’s crushing rule, will offer no fair opportunity for new Palestinian leaders with new strategies to emerge. Elections must provide a genuine contest and not be mere plebiscites confirming the post-Arafat appointments of failed old guard figures like PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and their backers who control the PA apparatus with money and guns. Ominously, The New York Times reports that Israel, under American pressure, has already released $40 million in blocked PA funds to “strengthen the position” of the old guard.
In the best case, from Israel’s perspective, the old guard confirmed in place by flawed elections would continue to offer disastrous concessions as they did throughout the Oslo period. And at worst, they would simply become new scapegoats to whom Israel and the US will deliver impossible demands and then heap blame when they are inevitably unfulfilled. Palestinian leaders must no longer accept this assigned role.
Palestinians should also demand elections in the diaspora as well the occupied territories. Arguably Arafat’s greatest mistake is that after signing the Oslo accords, he abandoned the PLO’s base in exile. Millions of Palestinians were disenfranchised and the negotiating position of the Palestinian leadership severely weakened because it could not claim that it had to refer any agreement back to its people.
Assistance from the United Nations and host countries would be essential to successful diaspora elections. The recent Afghan election, in which 740,000 refugees in Pakistan voted, proves it can be done. Currently, almost four million Palestine refugees are registered with UNRWA. All exiled Palestinians should have the right to vote and be elected to a Palestinian national assembly with the sole authority to approve any future peace agreement.
ei: Palestinian Elections (9 January 2005)
Barghouthi Drops Palestinian Election Bid
Fri Nov 26, 4:42 PM ET
By Mohammed Assadi
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi will not run in the Palestinian presidential election, an official said on Friday, following pressure from the ruling Fatah faction to support Mahmoud Abbas.
Fatah leaders had feared that Barghouthi, a popular leading member of the group founded by Yasser Arafat, could split the group if he had decided to go ahead with plans to run in the Jan. 9 poll.
Cabinet minister and group member Qaddoura Fares, who visited him earlier in prison, said the 45-year-old former lawmaker had called on his followers to endorse Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to succeed Arafat.
“In order to maintain the unity of the movement … (Barghouthi) is calling upon the sons of the movement and his supporters to support the movement’s nominee Mahmoud Abbas,” Fares told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Fatah had sent Fares to try to dissuade Barghouthi from challenging Abbas, the group’s presidential nominee and a moderate former Palestinian prime minister. Barghouthi had said through confidants that he had planned to run in the election in what Palestinian analysts called an expression of dissatisfaction by younger Fatah officials by what they saw as their marginalization by veteran leaders.
He dropped his bid shortly before Fatah voted to hold its first internal election in 14 years next August, a ballot expected to give younger grassroots activists a larger say in decision-making.
LIFE SENTENCE
Barghouthi was sentenced in June by an Israeli criminal court to five life terms after it convicted him of involvement in the killings of Israelis. He had said he was a political leader with no involvement in violence.
Israel has ruled out an early release for Barghouthi.
Following Fares’s announcement, Barghouthi’s wife and teenage daughter burst into tears as several Palestinians shouted “This is injustice!”
Abbas, 69, lacks the charismatic Barghouthi’s grassroots popularity but he is favored as a future peacemaker by Israel and the United States. His defeat could deal a blow to any international effort to revive violence-stalled peace efforts.
Fatah’s Central Committee nominated Abbas for president earlier this week and the faction’s Revolutionary Council approved the decision on Thursday.
Palestinian political analysts had predicted Barghouthi would stand a good chance of winning the ballot, drawing support from mainstream voters as well as from Islamists who oppose Abbas’s call to end the uprising.
Fatah’s pro-Barghouthi “young guard,” a generation raised under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, has been demanding a stronger voice in a faction dominated by exiles who returned after interim peace deals with Israel in the 1990s.
He was the main voice of a revolt for an independent Palestinian state after peace negotiations collapsed in 2000 and has long been seen as a potential successor to Arafat.
Passionate and articulate, the bearded and diminutive Barghouthi has also advocated peace with Israel, making his case for an end to occupation in near-perfect Hebrew learned during previous jail stints.