Campaign to select new Palestinian president starts

Free and fair elections? Israel will do its very best to stop them, reports Khaled Amayreh

In the flood of statements made by Israeli officials following the death of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat only one thing has emerged clearly and that is Israeli ambivalence over the holding of free and fair elections to select a new Palestinian leadership.

With Israel occupying most of the West Bank and controlling Gaza Strip those elections will have to be organised in the shadow of Israeli tanks while those on the campaign trail will have to negotiate the ubiquitous Israeli road blocks. It is hardly a situation conducive to the exercise of democracy.

Palestinian and Israeli observers agree that Arafat's death, long wished by Sharon and his right-wing allies, especially the powerful military establishment, has created a sizeable dilemma for the Israeli government.

"Israel has been telling the world for years that Arafat is the main obstacle to peace. Now Arafat is dead, which means that the main obstacle to peace has been removed. So logically Israel should now be moving forwards along the path of peace," says Ramallah-based columnist and political analyst Samih Shabib. "But this won't happen, not in any meaningful way. Sharon and his government will clutch at another excuse. The real issue is not this or that leader but Israel's refusal to come to terms with Palestinian rights. Israel prefers land over peace and this is what the international community will increasingly come to understand."

The first test of Israel's post-Arafat dilemma will be the Palestinian elections. The US, Europe and the Palestinians all want to see truly democratic elections taking.

The Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council Rawhi Fattouh, sworn in as acting president last week, has announced that they will take place on 9 January. President Bush, speaking during a joint press conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, stressed on Saturday that "democracy" was the sin qua non not only for a successful peace process but also for the realisation of Palestinian statehood.

Israel has been watching these developments with growing alarm. Sharon, brushing aside international demands that Israel display goodwill towards the evolving Palestinian leadership, was quoted as saying that the "disappearance of a bad leadership does not mean that a good leadership has appeared."

It is a telling remark. Sharon realises well that the outcome of free elections in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem will not be favourable to Israel and that whoever is elected will be unwilling to accept Israeli dictates on core issues such as the status of Jerusalem, the right of return and Israeli settlements. He also knows that a manifestly rejectionist stand will sooner or later invite international condemnation, placing Israel in a difficult position vis-ˆ-vis the international community.

"Israel and the US can't have their cake and eat it. Democracy is democracy and the Palestinians must be allowed to choose their representatives regardless of the political views of those representatives," says Ali Jarbawi, head of the Palestinian Election Committee and professor of political science at Bir Zeit University.

Jarbawi is worried that Israel will soon be casting around for pretexts to prevent or dilute Palestinian elections. "Sharon is already paltering with the issue of terror in an effort to throw the ball into the Palestinian court. He knows perfectly well that real peace cannot come cheaply, and his government is not willing to pay. That's the crux of the matter."

Many Israeli intellectuals do not bother to hide their apprehension about the possibility of the Palestinian people holding free elections. Ira Sharkansky, professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, spoke for many when he told Al-Ahram Weekly that while he recognised the importance of holding free elections in the West Bank and Gaza he was not sure they would produce the "right people".

A Palestinian leadership faithful to Palestinian national aspirations and answerable to the Palestinian masses is something Israel will find it hard to stomach, and many fear that Sharon will do his utmost to ensure the elections are neither free nor fair. To which end Israel holds a number of cards, not least the incarceration the 7,000-8,000 Palestinian political prisoners, many of them popular political leaders at both the national and local levels. There are reports that Marwan Al- Barghouti, the imprisoned secretary-general of Fatah, has already indicated that he might stand for PA president.

Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, have ruled out the possibility of releasing Al-Barghouti. Nor, Shalom said, would Israel allow balloting in East Jerusalem.

None of which comes as a surprise to Professor Abdul-Sattar Qassem, a candidate for the Palestinian presidency: "Israel cannot be trusted to allow free elections in Palestine," he says, "because Israel is interested in one thing, the appearance of a quisling leadership that will cede Palestinian rights. But that will never happen."

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/717/sc5.htm