Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to
convene the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Committee was
dealt a massive blow when most of the Palestinian factions decided not to
attend. Only a few factions that have a minor following decided to attend,
stripping the 86-year-old president whose term ended in 2009 of the legitimacy
he had hoped to get to show the world.
اضافة اعلان
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is
boycotting, and Islamic factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are not
part of the PLO, have decided not to take part in the meeting.
The PFLP stressed, in a press statement: “The danger of
holding this meeting without consensus represents a transgression of the
previous national consensus to arrange the Palestinian house and to hold
comprehensive elections, and blocks the way for efforts to end division and
restore unity, which deepens the Palestinian internal crisis that the
occupation (Israel) exploits by escalating its Judaization and settlement
measures on Palestinian land, especially in Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
The Palestinian National Initiative announced that it will
not participate in the meeting of the Palestinian Central Committee (PCC) on
Sunday. Mustafa Barghouthi, who leads the PNI, said that without a national
dialogue, his party finds it difficult to take part in the meeting that will
exacerbate internal divisions.
“Participating in this meeting without a date for
Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections constitutes a violation of
the democratic right of the Palestinian people,” he said.
Barghouthi also said that the PCC took many political
decisions in past meetings that have “never been implemented and this meeting
will repeat the same scenario”.
“We feel there is a very serious violation of democratic
participation. There has been no consultation before having the meeting and the
PA decided to cancel the election of the national council of the PLO,” he said.
The PLO National Council serves as the
Palestinian parliament and represents all Palestinians inside and outside the Palestinian
territories.
One faction that decided to take part in the gathering is
the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and that sparked a
huge backlash from its members who publicly rejected the faction’s political
committee decision to participate.
According to a source, the DFLP was offered lucrative
political and financial incentives for attending.
Esmat Mansour, a
Ramallah-based political analyst and former
member of the DFLP, told
Jordan News that the meeting was a severe blow to the
PLO and its narrative that it represents the entire Palestinian spectrum.
“It is managed according to individuals to re-create the
atmosphere and re-appropriate the institution to be in line with certain
political appointments serving in the post-Abu Mazen era.”
Mansour said the DFLP participation will most likely hurt
its political standing with its followers.
“Active factions are absent from this meeting, which weakens
it and puts serious doubts on its ability to reflect the general Palestinian
situation.”
Dimitri Diliani,
Fateh’s Revolutionary Council member and a
leader in the Democratic Reformist Faction within the movement, told
Jordan
News that the failure to convene this meeting represents “another nail in
Abbas’ political coffin”.
“President Abbas’ inability to gather the majority of the
Palestinian factions who represent the majority of the Palestinian people at
the meeting represents a clear weakness and a lack of legitimacy,” he said.
The PCC top item on the agenda is to fill several vacancies
in a session that will likely further deepen the internal division. PCC makes
policy decisions when the Palestinian National Council (PNC) legislature is not
in session.
The votes for top PLO posts may provide clues as to who will
succeed Abbas down the road.
There are several major vacancies in the Palestinian
executive committee, most notably the position left vacant by Saeb Erekat,
chief negotiator for the Palestinians who died in November 2020 after
contracting the coronavirus.
Palestinian Authority Minister of Civil Affairs
Hussein Al-Sheikh is expected to win the big prize and be elected to fill Erekat’s
shoes, making him the front-runner to succeed Abbas as head of the PA.
Another vacancy in the PLO’s decision-making executive
committee is that of spokesperson, which was held by veteran senior official
Hanan Ashrawi, who is also boycotting the planned meeting, until December 2020.
Ashrawi said at the time of her resignation that the Palestinian political
system needed “renewal and reinvigoration”.
In recent years, Abbas’ critics became more vocal against
his autocratic rule and reliance on a small inner circle of men in their 70s
and 80s.
Former PA minister Ziad AbuZayyad told
Jordan News it is
“unfortunate” that there are factions that will not take part in the meeting.
“It is not only the division between Fatah and Hamas, but it
is also becoming a division between Fatah and all the other national factions,”
he said.
That is troubling news for the Palestinian political system,
AbuZayyad said.
“To make this only for Fatah and to ignore the other
national factions affects the ability and credibility of the PLO as the sole
representative of the Palestinian people,” AbuZayyad said, adding: “I think
that President Abbas should reconsider what he is doing and try to create
conditions to allow all the national factions to join the meeting and be part
of it.”
The absence of other factions greatly diminishes the
importance of the meeting, and will not provide Abbas with the legitimacy he
desperately needs to prove that he has a mandate to govern.
Nour Odeh, a Ramallah-based writer and political activist,
told
Jordan News that the fact that several factions will not attend is
troubling news for the Palestinians.
“I think what is happening is that the Palestinian political
system is being rewritten in a way that is deformed, and does not serve the
Palestinian people,” she said.
“The decision to attend is basically throwing a lifeline for
Abbas,” says Odeh.
The PLO was established in 1964 and is known internationally
as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. However, it has lost much
of its significance since the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 as
a result of the PLO’s signing the Oslo Accords with Israel, which were supposed
to serve as a precursor to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Many Palestinians say the political system has been hijacked
by a few people with the goal of staying in power at any cost.
“This is about a group of people who are intent on surviving
politically and staying in power politically. They do not really care about any
other details,” said Odeh who accused Abbas of weakening Palestinian
institutions.
“Abu Mazen (Abbas) will be remembered as the person who
buried, or at least tried to bury, the PLO and emptied it of all meaning. All
you have to do is take a look at the judicial system within the PA, the
position of the prime minister; he turned all the Palestinian institutions into
a tragic joke,” Odeh said.
Abbas, who was elected in 2005 for a term that expired in
2009, has maintained power without elections. His popularity has taken a
nosedive, with opinion polls showing that most Palestinians want him to resign.
Last April, Abbas canceled presidential and legislative
elections scheduled for May, which were to be the first in 15 years, arguing
that Israel would not allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to participate in
the voting.
“Our existence as a political entity is in deep crisis, and
this will be entrenched by this meeting next week,” Odeh said.
Like many Palestinians, she blames the world powers for the
situation, saying that the US and Europe bear a huge chunk of the responsibility
for the internal political chaos in the Palestinian arena.
“The international community is a partner in this
dysfunctional and very dangerous situation that we are in. My concern is that
the international community, particularly the Biden administration, and major
players in the EU, are enabling this. They are not serious about seeing
elections or a real change in the conduct of policy or of the status quo of the
occupation,” Odeh said.
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