Abbas re-elected as leader of Fatah as congress opens
PALESTINIAN president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah re-elected him party head yesterday as the movement opened its first congress since 2009 with talk mounting of who will eventually succeed the 81-year-old.
Abbas was re-elected by consensus, party spokesman Mahmud Abu al-Hija said, and was due to address the congress at 6pm (1600 GMT). Some 1,400 delegates were attending.
The election of members of Fatah’s parliament and its central committee over the five-day conference will signal the direction the oldest Palestinian party will take at a time when Abbas is weakened by his own unpopularity and internal dissent.
While the ageing leader has said he has no intention of step- ping aside anytime soon, talk of who will eventually succeed him as Palestinian president has intensified. He has not publicly designated a successor.
Some analysts see the congress as an attempt by Abbas to marginalise political opponents, includinglongtimerivalMohammed Dahlan, currently in exile in the United Arab Emirates.
Observers have seen the reduced number of officials to vote – down from more than 2,000 in 2009 – as part of a move to exclude Dahlan supporters.
Dimitri Diliani, elected to Fatah’s revolutionary council, or parliament, in 2009, said he was not invited to the congress like dozens of others because “we bring a different voice”.
He said a press conference set for a refugee camp near Ramallah yesterday with those recently dismissed from the party had been called off after threats“from the security services”, including death threats.
Jibril Rajoub, a former intelligence chief, current head of the Palestinian Football Association and Fatah central committee member, acknowledged “opponents and dissidents” had not been invited, but said “the priority is to hold the congress”.
Rajoub also said the gathering will provide an opportunity to update the party’s structures.
“The system from the 1960s no longer works in 2016,” he SAID
Saeb Erekat, Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary general and Fatah central committee member, said the congress will allow the party to “choose leaders for the next stage.”
But the congress also comes at a difficult time for the push to create a Palestinian state, with the cause overshadowed by other crises in the region.
The incoming Donald Trump administration in the US has signalled its policies will be far more favourable to Israel.
Peace efforts have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.
Israel is concerned that US President Barack Obama may take action related to the conflict before he leaves office in January, but his intentions remain unclear. Former US president Jimmy Carter has called on Obama to recognise a Palestinian state before his term is up.