MIFTAH
Friday, 29 March. 2024
 
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Chief rivals Fatah and Hamas were making a last pitch for votes on the final day of campaigning in the Palestinian election whose outcome promises to have a profound impact on the Middle East peace process.

Fatah faces an unprecedented threat to its long stranglehold on power with polls showing the Islamists of Hamas are now running almost neck and neck ahead of voting on Wednesday in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

The possibility of a Hamas victory or a strong enough showing to enable it to push for a seat at cabinet has led Israel to warn that the peace process will remain frozen and international players that they will struggle to continue dealing with the Palestinian Authority.

The ballot also comes barely two months before an Israeli general election in March and at a time when their leader of the last five years, Ariel Sharon, remains in a coma with little prospect of a return to power.

Hundreds of foreign observers, including former US president Jimmy Carter, will oversee a vote which had at one stage threatened to be marred by violence.

Around 1.34 million Palestinians will be entitled to cast their vote in what is only the second ever parliamentary election, ultimately sending 132 deputies to the Ramallah-based legislative council.

Fatah was expected to concentrate its last push for votes in its West Bank stronghold, staging rallies in the main cities such as Ramallah and Nablus.

Hamas meanwhile was to wheel out its big guns, such as chief candidate Ismail Haniya, in rallies in its Gaza Strip power base.

Fatah's campaign chief Nabil Shaath admits the movement's dominance faces a major threat from Hamas which boycotted the only other election a decade ago.

"Hamas has a chance to make a coalition. As the head of the Fatah campaign I have to take it seriously and work very hard to prevent it," Shaath said in an interview with AFP.

Israel's Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he will not do business with a government that includes Hamas, behind the majority of attacks during a five-year-old uprising and which refuses to recognise the Jewish state's right to exist.

"There can be no progress with an administration in which there are terrorist organisations as members," he told US President George W. Bush in a phone call.

Hamas's decision to participate in the election has been seen by some observers of a sign of a growing moderation of the movement which has held off staging attacks over the last year.

Haniya however denies any contradiction in Hamas continuing to advocate the use of violence while sitting in a democratically elected legislature.

"Hamas will be active in the resistance as well as in parliament in the political domain," he told AFP.

Fatah's chief candidate, Marwan Barghuti, issued an appeal for maximum turnout from an Israeli prison where he is serving five life terms, calling the elections "essential" to freedom.

Barghuti's recent call for the armed wings of Fatah to let the vote take place free of violence appears to have had an impact, with a spate of attacks on election offices coming to an end.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was confident that voting would pass off smoothly but said the security forces had orders to deal with an "iron fist" with anyone who tried to wreck the poll.

"I know that there are people who have no interest in the democratic process -- we will isolate them and prevent them from achieving their aims," he said after a visit to the central election commission headquarters in Ramallah.

The security forces have already begun voting so as to free themselves for the task of protecting the polling booths on Wednesday.

A massive security operation to protect the booths will begin at 1700 GMT Monday when a maximum state of alert comes into force.

Residents of east Jerusalem will be allowed to cast ballots in post offices under a compromise allowed by Israel which annexed the Arab part of the Holy City in 1967.

Israel had initially threatened to disrupt the whole vote in protest at Hamas' participation but backed down in the absence of US support.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said after taking office last week that Hamas' participation showed Palestinians had not grasped the fundamentals of democracy.

"Can you imagine any European country or the United States allowing a terrorist organisation to take part in elections?"

 
 
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