Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party has elected a new generation of leaders at its first congress in 20 years, including a militant leader behind bars in Israel.
Marwan Barghuti, a popular Palestinian who is serving five life sentences in Israel, was among those elected to Fatah’s governing body at a conference aimed at healing deep rifts, party officials said yesterday.
Barghuti, 50, who was found guilty in 2004 for his role in five deadly attacks against Israelis, is Fatah’s secretary-general for the West Bank but was never a member of the Central Committee.
The committee was last renewed at Fatah’s previous congress 20 years ago and many members hope that introducing fresh blood into its top bodies will help invigorate the party, which has lost much of its clout over recent years.
Also among those elected to 21-strong body were former Palestinian internal security chief Jibril Rajub, 56 and former Fatah strongman in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan.
“Today the Fatah emerges from this congress united and strengthened,” Rajub said.
Top Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qorei was among the party veterans who lost their seat on the committee as the congress returned only three incumbents.
Members of the party founded in the late 1950s by iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also elected a raft of new leaders to its 120-strong Revolutionary Council.
About 2,000 delegates cast their ballots at the party congress held in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, the first ever in Palestinian territory.
Fatah exercised undivided power among Palestinians before it was trounced by its Islamist rival Hamas in a 2006 parliamentary election.
Its power base has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since Fatah forces were routed from Gaza when Hamas violently seized power in the coastal strip in 2007 after days of deadly street battles.
Allegations of corruption and internal divisions further weakened the party.
In his opening speech at the congress on Aug. 4, Abbas listed a litany of errors he said Fatah had committed, urging delegates to learn from them and use the congress as a platform to give Fatah a new start.
But the very next day, acrimonious disputes broke out as hundreds of delegates protested the lack of administrative and financial accounting by the Fatah leadership since the last congress in 1989.
The congress on Saturday re-elected Abbas as head of the secular movement, a post he has held since Arafat’s death in 2004, and renewed its charter, effectively endorsing his political program.
Fatah, which over the years has moved away from the armed struggle, underlined its commitment to a negotiated peace with Israel, but stressed that the Palestinian people have a “right to resistance to occupation.”
The clause prompted angry responses from Israeli ministers, who said the charter proved there was no real desire to reach a compromise with Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday told visiting US Democratic lawmakers there was no body representing all Palestinians, just “Hamastan in Gaza and Fatahland” in the West Bank.
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