As Palestinian citizens prepare to vote in the legislative elections on 25 January, the currently ruling Fatah party is fully aware of the competition Hamas the rising Islamist movement has come to represent. But what equally worries most of Fatah's officials is the share of its core voters the movement's independents will take away.
Fatah is facing the most serious challenge to a political hegemony it has maintained in the Palestinian territories since the 1970s. The movement's various competitors in these elections include many Fatah veterans who have chosen to run as independents. This both threatens to open significant divisions among Fatah's supporters at the polls, and plays directly into the hands of its rivals.
Also in openDemocracy on Palestinian politics and arguments:
Linda Benedikt, "Faith, not optimism: Sari Nusseibeh interviewed" (April 2004)
Stephen Howe, "The death of Arafat and the end of national liberation"
(November 2004)
Eóin Murray, "Welcome to Costa-del-Gaza"
(July 2005)
Jane Kinninmont, "Life after Sharon: Palestinian prospects"
(January 2006)
Eóin Murray, "Palestinians time of choice" (January 2006)
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The records of Palestine's central elections commission (CEC) suggest that in addition to the fifty-six candidates of Hamas Fatah's sixty-six candidates in the sixteen Palestinian districts face 258 independent candidates, the majority of them either members of Fatah or known supporters.
But what further complicates Fatah's situation is the fact that some of those "independent" candidates are also members of its revolutionary council the body that decided earlier that every supporter of the movement should vote only for its district candidates and central list.
On the eve of the election, Fatah's leadership has increased efforts to convince the splintering independents to withdraw in favour of the movement's chosen candidates.
Nabil Shaath, Fatah's campaign manager and deputy prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said that he and his colleagues so far have managed to convince thirty independent candidates to step down and support the movement's own candidates.
However, this tactic is presented with a technical obstacle, according to the CEC's executive director, Ammar Dwaik, who commented that the independent candidates had attempted to cancel their registration after the legal period for withdrawals ended.
"The names of those candidates have already been printed on the ballot papers, and they will appear inevitably on election day the only solution for them is to inform their constituents that they will withdraw", Duweik said.
Indeed, a few advertisements run by a number of the independents appeared in the local Palestinian newspapers encouraging voters not to vote for them.
Jamal Muheisen, the coordinator of Fatah's electoral list, argued that all the public opinion polls are unanimous in predicting that none of the independent candidates will manage to gain a seat in the legislative council.
"This is a major problem", Muheisen confessed. "They know they aren't going to win any seats yet they continue to run."
He further explained that Fatah experienced similar conditions during the first legislative elections in 1996, but they overcame these problems through direct intervention of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat considered the patriarch of the movement, and a figure able to influence the majority of its members.
Muheisen declared that during the next revolutionary-council meeting, the members will demand that any Fatah members who decide to run in the elections as an independent should have their membership revoked especially those who sit on the council itself.
At the same time, several candidates who are formally affiliated with Fatah have admitted that their chances might improve if the independents declared that they were no longer participating in the election. This likely trend is supported by polls suggesting that Hamas's candidates will benefit from the internal competition among Fatah's candidates.
"All the polls and indicators showed that the withdrawal of Fatah's activists running as independents in the elections will boost the chances of the official ones in all districts", Fatah's candidate for Jerusalem district, Ahmad Ghunaim, stated.
Despite Ghunaim's reassurances, movement officials claim that even with the retreat of Fatah's independents, the divisions that have become apparent will make it hard for the candidates of Fatah to receive a significant advantage over the competition. One commented:
"Of course the number of candidates for each district will affect the official (Fatah) candidates. For example, there are four Hamas candidates in Jerusalem, and they will receive all the votes of Hamas supporters there but for Fatah, the votes of supporters will be dispersed between official and independent candidates: twelve in total."
Fatah officials were unable to estimate the expected loss of such a move, but they admitted that its impact could be serious for the movement. The intervention of the "independents" may help make 25 January 2006 a momentous day in Palestinian politics.
