'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Palestinian elections-2

Marwan Barghouthi as the Palestinians' Mandela? It has always been a possibility. And it is one that, despite the Fateh Revolutionary Council's recent decision to back Abu Mazen as the movement's candidate in the upcoming PA elections, is still being actively considered by many in the upper echelons of Fateh.

I imagine that in the first instance that would be "Mandela, the representative of all the nationalist prisoners, whose release becomes an international cause célèbre", rather than "Mandela, the wily political prisoner who manages to negotiate a far-reaching political deal with his captors, while always keeping within the discipline of his movement"... Though that other step may come later, God willing.

Except for this: remember just how many years Mandela had to be in jail (28), before he reached his deal with De Klerk... By that standard, it would be another 23 years or so till the Palestinians and Israelis reached their deal. A depressing thought, altogether.

Anyway, this prospect of Fateh launching a broad campaign to focus on "Free Barghouthi", echoing the "Free Mandela" movement in which so many of us participated back in the 1970s and 1980s, is just one of the things I learned about by reading this article, from Saida Hamad in East Jerusalem, in the online version of Hayat today. I even, as an exercize in my Arabic-language reading skills, wrote out a complete translation of the piece in English...

(Why is this happening? We were planning to be on our way to Teheran today. But the Iranian visas didn't come through until just after the departure of the flight we were supposed to be leaving Beirut on. There's a possibility we can get another flight, Tuesday. Meantime, I don't want to be sitting here in our apartment in Beirut twiddling my thumbs...)

So anyway, the four most interesting things in Hamad's piece were these:

1. The info about the possible "Free Barghouthi" campaign. As you can see from the translation I provided, the "old guard" guys in Fateh reportedly promised this to Marwan as part of the quid pro quo they offered him in return for him agreeing not only not stand against Abu Mazen in the January elections, but also (gulp), actually to support him... The other parts of the quid pro quo were: (a ) A commitment to hold the 16th meeting of Fateh's policymaking General Conference no later than August, so that both the Central Committee and (I assume) the Revolutionary Council can be renewed there through democratic means... (In contrast to much past practice.) Plus (b) the possibility that in connection with the "Free Barghouthi" campaign, Abu Mazen would name Marwan as his "Vice Presidential" candidate in the PA election...So far, it looks as though Marwan drove a pretty hard bargain...

1. Continuing evidence of the internal decay inside Fateh. This, from the reporting that the first thing Abu Mazen needed to do after getting "nomionated" by Fateh was actually to try to win the wholehearted support of Fateh's people themselves for his candidacy. Having Marwan on the ticket as a "Vice Presidential" might well help his chances. I have to say I have no knowledge of the PA structure allowing for a "Vice President" at all. So it will be interesting indeed to see whether the Israelis and Americans will allow the PA to print up ballots with space for that...
2. Some info about Hamas's position. Hamad says Hamas will come out with its "final position" on the elections sometime in the coming week, and it could be anything "from a boycott to supporting an independent candidate." She also mentioned the possibility that they might "not oppose" Abu Mazen, in return for a promise that he'd hold general (i.e., I think, parliamentary) elections before May 15th. That latter idea-- of Hamas insisting on the holding of both parliamentary and municipal elections within a strict timetable-- has been mentioned before. I note that in pursuing this strategy of focusing on and participating in parliamentary and municipal elections while abstaining from participation in national-leadership elections, Hamas would be acting in line with the practice followed by Hizbullah here in Lebanon to great effect. For Hizbullah, it has really allowed them to consolidate their political base, act as a powerful political force in society, and improve the quality of governance at several levels-- while avoiding the need to participate in the very "messy" compromises involved in exercizing national leadership.
3. That Mustafa Barghouthi, cousin of Marwan and one of the leaders of the very effective "Medical Relief Committees" in the West Bank, will on Monday be announcing his candidacy as the nominee of the leftist coalition the "Palestinian National Initiative". He will be doing this during a 3-way videoconference in which while he participates from Ramallah, Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafei will participate from Gaza and Ibrahim Dakkak, a distinguished engineer and city planner, will participate from occupied Jerusalem./ What a great idea! I hope the event works out well for them.

Maybe just sitting here and doing some close translation work is good for me. I don't know. I'd rather be in Teheran, but I suspect we might not get there.