Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pledged to reform the Palestinian Authority (PA) and hold long-delayed presidential and parliamentary elections at a Fatah party conference in the occupied West Bank.
Fatah kicked off the three-day Eighth General Conference in Ramallah on Thursday to elect a new central committee, its highest leadership body, for the first time in 10 years as it faces existential challenges in the wake of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“We renew our full commitment to continuing work on implementing all the reform measures we pledged,” Abbas said in an address. He also pledged to hold new elections, though he did not provide a timeline.
Late on Thursday, Abbas was unanimously re-elected as leader of the Fatah movement and will remain head of the central committee, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. Fatah is the main party within the Palestinian Authority.
Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are under mounting pressure from the US regime, the European Union, and Arab states to implement reforms and hold elections, amid widespread accusations of corruption and political stagnation, as well as the body’s declining legitimacy among Palestinians.
Fatah’s central committee is expected to play a key role in the post-Abbas era. Key figures competing to replace Abbas include Jibril Rajoub, the committee’s secretary-general, and PA Deputy Hussein al-Sheikh.
The conference comes as the Palestinian national movement faces some of its “most serious challenges in our struggle”, Rajoub told AFP. He expressed hope that the conference would contribute to “ensuring and protecting the establishment of a Palestinian state on the world’s agenda and protecting the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.
Fatah has historically been the main component of the PLO, but its popularity and influence have waned in recent decades amid internal divisions and public frustration over the stalled peace process. This led to a surge in support for rival Hamas, which won 2006 legislative elections before expelling Fatah from Gaza.
The conference is attended by approximately 2,580 Fatah members, who are expected to elect 18 representatives to the central committee and 80 to the revolutionary council. However, major figures like Nasser al-Qudwa, nephew of late leader Yasser Arafat, boycotted the gathering, labeling it “illegitimate”.
Source: www.aljazeera.com