By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
RAMALLAH, West Bank – After the election for Fatah’s leadership body, the Central Committee, many of Fatah’s Gaza leaders have quit, citing massive voter fraud. In addition, Fatah leaders in both Gaza and the West Bank have composed a memorandum to President Mahmoud Abbas, calling for the rejection of the August 12 elections.
The election determining Fatah’s eighteen-member leadership council has come under scrutiny, as allegations have surfaced regarding last-minute ballot substitutions and unilateral decisions for or against candidates. The election has also sparked underlying tensions between members of the older Fatah leadership, who came of age immersed in the ideologies of Fatah’s founder, Yassir Arafat, and younger, more pragmatic locally-born leaders who have negotiated with Israel.
One member of the “old guard” who lost his seat was top Palestinian negotiator and former Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei. Qorei claimed that “interventions” marred the balloting, and said that he had formally complained to the Fatah leadership, “not only against the results but also against the entire process of elections.”
Fourteen out of the eighteen seats on the Central Committee were won by individuals who had never previously served on the Committee. Many Palestinians see the election as a response to Fatah’s reputation for corruption, cronyism, and infighting, and the embodied hopes of Palestinians in favor of a more transparent, pragmatic approach to the Israel-Palestinian peace process. Jailed leader Marwan Barghouti and Mohammad Dahlan, former head of the Fatah security forces in Gaza, were two of the most well-known newly elected members, and both are considered possible unifying, pragmatic leaders of Fatah.
Saeb Erekat, another leading Palestinian negotiator and newly elected member of the Central Committee said the August 12 election was “a coup against a leadership that had monopolized the movement for a long time without even presenting a report about its work.”
President Abbas said that Fatah came out of the elections “energized” and dismissed any speculation that the party had suffered a split.
For more information, please see:
Jerusalem Post – Fatah’s Gaza Leaders Quit, Citing Massive Vote Fraud – 14 August 2009
AFP – Abbas Rules Out Talks Unless Israel Halts Settlements – 13 August 2009
Ma’an News Agency – Angry Fatah Members to Deliver Rejection Memo to Abbas Over Elections – 13 August 2009
BBC News – Young Leaders Dominate Fatah Vote – 11 August 2009
New York Times – Fatah Party Election Brings in a New Generation – 11 August 2009
