GAZA, 19 November 2004 — Five Palestinian factions, including two radical groups, have agreed to field a joint candidate in the Jan. 9 presidential election to replace the late Yasser Arafat, an official said yesterday.
Two of the groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, boycotted the previous Palestinian election in 1996. Both factions rejected Arafat’s interim peace deals with Israel.
The factions, which also include the Struggle Front, People’s Party and Democratic Federation (FIDA) — all of them small groups — agreed in recent meetings in Gaza to run a joint candidate, but have yet to select one.
On Tuesday, Abdel-Sattar Qassem, a longtime critic of Arafat, and Talal Seder, one of Arafat’s loyalists, became the first to announce their candidacy in the January poll.
Both are little known to ordinary Palestinians and lack party affiliations, making them long-shot challengers to Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate former prime minister and new Palestine Liberation Organization leader who is expected to run.
Rabah Muhana, a PFLP leader, told Reuters the five groups would continue discussions with Abbas and urge him to set a date for a parliamentary election.
Abbas has been holding a series of meetings with Palestinian factions, including Islamic military groups, in the wake of Arafat’s death in a French military hospital on Nov. 11.
“We also will meet the temporary president of the Palestinian Authority, Rauhi Fattuh, and urge him to issue a presidential decree setting a date for parliamentary elections,” Muhana said. Lawmakers have said they expect a parliamentary ballot, last held in 1996, to be scheduled for next year, possibly in the spring.
