Cracks within Fatah

A brewing power struggle is taking place within the Fatah movement, the organisational and political backbone of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The main contention is between the movement's old guard, eager to retain power, and younger leaders at intermediate levels protesting marginalisation as well as "rampant despotism and authoritarianism" by the senior leadership.

This week, as many as 15 prominent regional Fatah leaders, including several lawmakers, resigned en mass from Fatah.

The resigning leaders, who included Ahmed Ghuneim, Mohamed Hourani, Hussein Al-Sheikh, Qaddura Faris, Jamal Shubaki and Hatem Abdul-Qader, warned that Fatah would suffer a resounding defeat in the upcoming legislative election, slated for 25 July, unless radical organisational reforms within the movement were introduced sooner rather than later.

In a press interview earlier this week, Ghuneim argued that Fatah was losing to Hamas in the Palestinian public opinion due to "mistakes and blunders" made by the movement's leadership, particularly the Fatah Executive Committee, controlled mainly by "outsiders" who returned from abroad after the creation of the self-rule authority in 1993.

Ghuneim and his colleagues, who are allied with imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, stressed that their mass resignations was not a bluff, as their opponents charged earlier.

He warned that the "old guard" would bear full responsibility for the receding status and stature as well as possible disintegration of Fatah.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/733/re4.htm