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Palestinians set Jan. 9 for election
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-14 23:53
Palestinians set Jan. 9 as the date for presidential elections to replace
Yasser Arafat on Sunday while the United States hinted it may be ready to resume
Middle East peacemaking.
"There will be free and direct elections to elect the president of the
Palestinian National Authority on Jan. 9, 2005," interim president Rawhi Fattouh
told reporters, but officials insisted Israel pull back from occupied areas.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom left on Saturday for the United States
where he and Secretary of State Colin Powell will discuss the "new
situation in the region," Israeli officials said.
Arafat's death on Thursday left power in the hands of veteran deputies
without his popular credibility. They want to hold elections within the 60 days
set by law to prevent a breakdown in order and revive peace moves with Israel.
The flux in the Palestinian leadership together with US President Bush's
re-election have bolstered peace hopes just as Israel has taken its first steps
to pull Jewish settlers out of Gaza, home to 1.3 million Palestinians.
During his first term in office Bush sidelined Arafat and came under
criticism across the globe for not pushing Israelis and Palestinians toward
peace.
Powell said on Saturday he hoped to meet Palestinian leaders "in the very
near future" as part of a fresh push for peace and a U.S. official said that
could be at a Nov. 22-23 conference in Egypt or at some other time in the
Palestinian territories.
Nominations
Speaking at the half-demolished Muqata compound where Arafat spent his final
years confined by Israel and where he was buried on Friday, Fattouh said the
period for nominating candidates would begin on November 20 and run for 12 days.
But senior Palestinian minister Saeb Erekat said: "If the Israelis continue
to obstruct voting in East Jerusalem or keep their army inside our areas (of
self-rule enshrined by 1990s interim peace deals), I don't think we can hold
elections."
Powell said on Saturday Washington wanted Israel to allow Palestinians in
occupied areas to move freely to enable a smooth vote for Arafat's successor.
"So much of this will depend on President Bush getting the Israeli government
to comply on creating conditions for elections," Erekat told Reuters.
Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they want on land
Israel took in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel shut Palestinian voter
registration offices there in September, as it deems all of Jerusalem its
indivisible capital.
But political sources close to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said
on Sunday he would likely relent on Palestinian voting in East Jerusalem if
pressed by Washington. Palestinians there voted in presidential and legislative
elections in 1996.
DOUBTS There are doubts whether any in the old Palestinian guard could win a
majority among a severely factionalized electorate.
Arafat's moderate successor as Palestine Liberation Organization chief,
Mahmoud Abbas, 69, is the early frontrunner for the nomination of the mainstream
Fatah national movement.
But only one man in Fatah, 45-year-old charismatic firebrand Marwan
Barghouthi, boasts broad appeal and he is serving a life prison term in Israel
for orchestrating suicide bombings, a charge he denies.
His lawyer said Barghouthi might run from his cell, though some questioned
whether he would challenge Abbas. There would also be resistance from Israel to
his candidacy.
Sharon brushed aside speculation Barghouthi might be
pardoned. "Contrary to what I hear in the media on the matter, we never release
terrorists who committed murder inside Israel," he told his cabinet on Sunday.
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