The Palestinian Elections: Heeding the storm

Barring another postponement, this week should see the passage of the third reading of the Palestinian elections law, which, if passed, should enable Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections in the occupied territories on their scheduled date of 17 July.

Only one dispute remains, says PLC member, Jamal Shubaki. It is between those like Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who want the law amended on the bases of a full proportional representation system and those, "the majority of the PLC", who want a mixed system based on electoral districts and PR. Still, "I expect the law to be ratified in the coming days", says Shubaki.

Perhaps -- but the dispute conceals a deeper fracture: between those within his Fatah movement who seek to delay the PLC elections and those, like Abbas, who believe the political cost of a delay outweighs any potential gain. It is a rift that has been widened by the quake caused from the Palestinian local elections earlier this month which saw Islamist Hamas movement gain a clear majority of votes if not yet municipalities.

The 17 July date was set in January by the Palestinian Authority's then acting president, Rawhi Fattouh The first reading of the law passed in February. On becoming president, Abbas never challenged the date. On the contrary, he told Fatah leaders that the 17 July was "a national commitment that cannot brook delay or manipulation", said one.

Abbas's commitment to parliamentary elections helped bring about the Palestinian ceasefire agreement between the factions in Cairo on 17 Match. There, not only was the 17 July date held sacrosanct; there was a pledge by the Fatah delegation to support a new election law in which 50 per cent of parliamentary seats would be determined by district and 50 per cent by PR. It was this recommendation that smoothed Hamas's way to endorse the "calm", say Fatah sources.

One month later a second reading of the law was passed. But instead of the 50-50 split urged by the Cairo Declaration or the full PR wanted by Abbas, the PLC came up with its own compromise, since, in the words of one Fatah deputy, "we are our own masters and decision- makers on the issue".

By 28 votes to 15, the PLC agreed to an amendment that enlarged the parliament from 88 to 132 members, with 88 of these to be elected by district and 44 by PR, a mixed system which "favours the independent and those with tribal networks at the expense of national parties and factions", in the view of Palestinian analyst, Hani Masri. Not surprisingly the amendment outraged the factions, with Hamas warning that a reneging on the electoral understandings reached at Cairo would mean a reneging on its commitment to calm.

So why did the Fatah-dominated PLC pass an amendment it knew Abbas could not accept -- not at least without unravelling the understandings so laboriously stitched at Cairo? The answer was indirectly given by veteran Fatah leader, Tayeb Abdul-Rahim, in an interview with the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper on 12 May.

Insisting that no decision had been taken to postpone the July poll, there were nevertheless "legal, political and national reasons" to do so, he said. Among them was Israel's ongoing occupation of most of the West Bank cities as well as the PLC's failure to pass an agreed election law. "That makes it difficult to hold elections on time," he said.

In whose voice was Abdul-Rahim speaking? He said he was giving his opinion not as Abbas's presidential aide but "as an ordinary member of the PLC". There are reasons to believe him. For the PLC -- including its supposedly reform minded "young guard" Fatah deputies -- has become the last Palestinian redoubt in an intra-Fatah struggle to postpone the July elections.

The reasoning is simple: the young guard, or elements of them, believe Fatah will be in better shape to face down the challenge posed by Hamas after the Fatah General Conference in August, where, they hope, a new Fatah leadership with new policies and a more coherent organisation will emerge. They also believe Abbas's call for an electoral system based on full PR will strengthen existing Fatah institutions like the "old guard" Central Committee at the expense of younger cadres who have some local base in the districts. "We believe in democracy. But it has to be a horse we can ride," says one Fatah PLC deputy.

Fatah's young guard prognoses may be accurate. But they fail to recognise three political realities. The first -- amply demonstrated by the first and second rounds of the local elections -- is that Fatah is no longer the ruling party in the occupied territories. The second is that the PLC is already six years past its electoral mandate. And the third is that 84 per cent of Palestinians want parliamentary elections on their scheduled date of 17 July.

Predictably, Abdul-Rahim's interview was met with a gale of protest. Hamas issued an official statement calling on Egypt to intervene and ensure that the PA would adhere to the understandings reached in Cairo. And from his prison cell in Israel Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti (once the doyen of the young deputies) said the PLC must ratify the 17 July date and Abbas's preference for an electoral system based on full PR. The furore was so great that Abbas had to issue two presidential statements, reaffirming that the elections would be held on the "due date".

Will Fatah heed the storm or will it, as so often in the past, confuse political ambition for national interest? If the PLC again postpones the election law or so filibusters that the 17 July deadline becomes impossible, it may win plaudits from Israel, the US and several European countries, all of which would like to see elections held after rather than before Israel's disengagement from Gaza. But it also "deals a massive blow to the credibility and legitimacy of the PA and Fatah," says Masri.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/743/re1.htm