(Economist) Nobody said reforming the Palestinian Authority (PA) would be easy. Months of wrangling about the election due on July 17th to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) had failed to produce a deal on how many seats to elect from national party lists and how many from local constituencies. Fatah, the PA's ruling party, with a strong brand (the late Yasser Arafat) but weak candidates (crusty timeservers loyal to him), would do better if it ran on national lists. Its rivals stand more of a chance in constituencies, where personal reputations and achievements count. Mahmoud Abbas could not reach a compromise within his own Fatah nor in the existing PLC, so he has put off the election indefinitely, though it is expected to be held only a few months late. More worrying for Abbas was Fatah's decision, a day after he postponed the election, to postpone its own party congress, set for August, when a younger, reformist generation was expected to vote old-guard members out of the party's ruling councils. The old-timers' main hope was to win seats in the PLC election first.
2005-06-14 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive