Daily Alert Archives

One Candidate, One Party

(Jerusalem Post)Barry Rubin- For all practical purposes, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is the sole candidate in the election for the PA leadership. This election will be like those regularly held in Arab dictatorships, the establishment's man monopolizing media coverage and active regime backing. The sole difference: a few minor candidates can run. On election day Abu Mazen will get 80% of the vote and observers will say the balloting was free and fair. But what happens at the ballot box means nothing for the power struggle among dozens of warlord-type contenders. Much of the West imagines this conflict is a simple matter of nationalist resistance to foreign occupation, the Palestinians' wish to create a West Bank-Gaza Strip state. But this is not what Palestinian leaders say when they talk to each other, their public, or the Arab world. Even today only a small minority of Palestinian leaders envisage a two-state solution as ending the conflict completely. Abu Mazen may want such a peaceful solution, but he knows compromise spells political suicide.
2004-12-03 00:00:00
Full Article