Abbas begins election campaign

A Palestinian man swings on a rope as he posts an election poster of Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, yesterday. The campaign to elect a successor to Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president began as frontrunner Abbas appealed for peace and security for the Palestinian people as he launched his campaign. PHOTO: AFP

Tayeb Abdelrahim, Abbas' campaign manager and the former secretary of the presidentinial office under Arafat, hailed Abbas for being "with the revolution from the start."

"You stood side by side with Abu Ammar (Arafat) to secure the peace of the brave," Abedlrahim said as he introduced Abbas to around 2,000 supporters at an assembly hall in Ramallah.

Abbas meanwhile was among the congregation at midnight mass in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the first time a Palestinian leader had attended the traditional Christmas service since Israel began confining Arafat to his leadership compound in December 2001.

The official start of campaigning comes just over a fortnight before the residents of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and occupied east Jerusalem prepare to cast their ballots for only the second time.

A total of seven candidates, four of them independents, are taking part in the January 9 contest although only Abbas has a realistic chance of victory.

The moderate former prime minister has already succeeded Arafat as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and has been chosen as the candidate of the dominant Fatah faction.

The hardline Islamist movement Hamas is boycotting the election and his only other potentially serious challenger, the jailed intifada leader Marwan Barghuti, renounced his candidacy after pressure from the Fatah leadership.

Abbas was expected to appear at his first campaign rally at an assembly hall in the center of this West Bank city which has emerged as the political capital of the Palestinian territories.

He is expected to associate himself heavily with the legacy of Arafat, the only man most Palestinians ever knew as their leader until his death on November 11.

The other six candidates include representatives from the Democ-ratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the People's Party (the former communists) and four independents.

The ballot is only the second Palestinian presidential election. Arafat was overwhelmingly elected as the first head of the Palestinian Authority in 1996.

In another sign that Abbas is already stepping into Arafat's shoes, he took his seat in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity at midnight mass in the same spot that had been symbolically reserved for Arafat during his confinement.

In his Christmas message, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, called for an end to the violence which he said had turned Palestinian towns into prisons.

"We pray that all walls fall down, those around Bethlehem and the other Palestinian towns, and the walls of hatred in our hearts," he said in reference to the West Bank barrier which has cut off the birthplace of Jesus Christ from the holy city of Jerusalem.