Canceled West Bank vote affirms Fatah decline

[Ed Barrow]

The Palestinian party expected to help deliver a Mideast peace deal is in such disarray these days, it's afraid to compete in an election even with its main rival out of the picture.

Next month's municipal balloting in the West Bank should have handed an easy victory to the Western-backed Fatah movement since its bitter competitor, the Islamic militant Hamas, decided to sit out the race. However, with strong signs that independents were poised to win in key towns, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah's leader, called off the election at the last minute.

The latest sign of Fatah's decline raises new concerns about a growing political vacuum in the West Bank and sets the stage for a rocky transition once 76-year-old Abbas leaves office.

Abbas has groomed no successor and has already overstayed his term as president by 17 months because his standoff with Hamas -- following the militants' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007 -- has made it impossible to hold general elections.


http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=courier-journal&sParam=33838115.story

[IndianaGreen]

1. You know what happens when there is a political vacuum, don't you?

Someone else will fill it.

[Recursion]

2. "Violent takeover of Gaza"

:banghead:

Hamas won the election. Israel and the US pressured Fatah to stage a coup. They did. Hamas won in Gaza, Fatah won in the West Bank.

[azurnoir]

3. what really makes the whole thing so transparently ridculous

is that Hamas did not win the Presidential election Fatah did (Abbas) Hamas won a majority of Parliamentary seats and a rather narrow one at that 74 out of 132 seats but even that was enough for Israel/ America to go into self-righteous uproar or faux outrage take your choice

[IndianaGreen]

4. Abbas term of office expired months ago. Why is he still hanging around?

Supporting Abbas is akin to supporting Bush refusing to leave office on January 2009.

[azurnoir]

5. IMO Abbas calling off the election is more closely related to his decline

Abbas has challengers from within Fatah too

[azurnoir]

6. Poll: Palestinians want elections

<snip>

Respondents voiced more confidence in the leadership of Fatah than that of Hamas but three in ten respondents said neither was qualified to lead the Palestinian people.

Those polled were greatly in favor of new legislative elections for 2010 (89%) but only if held in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with 89% believing Hamas should participate. If there were elections during the polling period, Fatah would have received considerably more electoral support than Hamas, according to the poll.

Fafo’s polls for 2008, 2009 and 2010 suggest that Hamas received a boost in support after the war in Gaza last year whereas Fatah lost voters, but that the relative strength of the two parties bounced back to what it was two years ago. The backing of Hamas in Gaza may even be lower than in 2008, the poll suggests.

However, Fafo said there was considerable uncertainty surrounding the poll data, since more than half of respondents refused to identify what party they supported. "These are people who refuse to answer the question, claim they do not intend to cast their votes, or do not know which party (or candidate) to support," researchers wrote.

Turning to relations with Israel, the poll found that a larger share of the population favored a halt to projectile attacks from Gaza against Israel than a year ago (61%, up from 53%). Seven in ten thought that Palestinians should resist Israel by putting more weight on civil, non-violent means.

Seventy-three percent favored peace negotiations with Israel and believed a freeze in Israeli settlement construction should be a precondition for such talks. The poll recorded enhanced support for a two-state solution.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=293110