Palestinians set elections for January 2003

The Palestinian Authority, under pressure from US President George W Bush to dump Yasser Arafat as its leader, announced today that presidential elections would be held next January.

Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Arafat had given the order for presidential and legislative balloting some time between January 10 and 20 and had also pledged an overhaul of security services, finances and courts within two to three months.

Erekat made the announcement in the West Bank city of Jericho two days after Bush called on Palestinians to elect leaders "not compromised by terror". Bush also said sweeping reforms were needed before a Palestinian state could be created.

Bush's political dilemma is that opinion polls show Arafat widely favoured to win re-election, meaning Palestinians are likely to give a fresh mandate to a leader whom Washington has effectively written off.

Arafat had brushed aside Bush's appeal for his people to replace him, but he appeared to be sending a message to Washington by pinning down the date for the first Palestinian elections since 1996.

"President Arafat officially declared today that the election of the president of the Palestinian Authority and the election of the Palestinian Legislative Council will be held in January 2003," Erekat said.

He said the exact date would be set soon.

Jericho was apparently chosen as the site for the election announcement because it is the only Palestinian-ruled West Bank city which Israeli forces have not seized in the past week following back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem.

Israeli forces maintained a tight grip on seven other West Bank cities today, keeping hundreds of thousands of Palestinians locked in their homes under curfew.

Erekat said it would be difficult to carry out elections and promised reforms if Israeli troops remained in place. "Elections cannot be carried out with tanks in every street. Voters cannot register while they are confined to their homes," he said.

Israel had welcomed Bush's Middle East policy speech on Monday as proof Washington had joined Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's drive to sideline Arafat.

However, Palestinians expressed disappointment and a strong undercurrent of scorn ran through the Arab world.

A senior US official said today that before deciding on his call for Arafat's removal, Bush received intelligence showing the Palestinian leader helped finance a group behind a series of suicide bombings in Israel.

Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdainah dismissed it as "Israeli propaganda".

The new allegation emerged at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in the Canadian resort of Kananaskis, where key US allies have expressed little enthusiasm for pushing Arafat aside.

"The Palestinians need new leadership - elected leadership," Bush repeated yesterday.

While the world pondered what would become of Arafat, the immediate future for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Qalqilya, Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin meant Israeli reoccupation, curfew and searches.

Asked how long the army would stay in the cities they entered after suicide bombers killed 26 people in Israel last week, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said: "As long as it takes us to fulfil our basic duty to our children."

Speaking on Israel's Channel One television, Ben-Eliezer said that on Tuesday alone Israeli forces had seized explosives belts, homemade rockets and "several terrorists and murderers of the first order" in sweeps through the West Bank.

Echoing a threat by Sharon to launch operations against the militant Islamic group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Ben-Eliezer said: "If Hamas' activities reach an intolerable level, nothing will help and we will have to go and fight it, too."

Shortly after arriving at the G8 summit, Bush defended Israel's right to self-defence. "Everybody's got a right to defend themselves," he said when asked if he condoned Israel's stepped-up offensive in the West Bank.

He cautioned: "I will continue to remind all parties they have responsibilities. And if there's a true desire for peace, they ought to work for that peace."

Ismail Haniyah, a senior figure in Hamas, said Bush's new Middle East policy merely upheld the "Zionist occupation" and vowed continued resistance.

Hamas has killed scores of Israelis in suicide attacks since a Palestinian uprising against occupation began in September 2000. At least 1425 Palestinians and 548 Israelis have been killed in the revolt.

When asked by reporters to respond to Bush's call for a new leadership, Arafat said on Tuesday in his tank-encircled headquarters: "This is what my people will decide. They are the only ones who can determine this."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would respect the electoral choice of the Palestinian people.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters Bush's call for Palestinian elections could backfire. "You could find yourself in a situation that the radicals are the ones that get elected," he said.

- REUTERS

Feature: Middle East

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