Palestinian
Election: A Travesty
Of Democracy
By Jean Shaoul
and Chris Talbot
12 January 2005
World
Socialist Web
As
expected, Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation (PLO), also known as Abu Maazen, was elected president
of the Palestinian Authority (PA) on January 9.
The election of
Abbas has been welcomed by world leaders as representing a new dawn
of democracy that holds out the prospect of a negotiated peace and the
development of an independent Palestinian state.
There was, however,
very little that was democratic about the election. It was held at gunpoint
under Israeli military control, with Washington placing enormous pressure
on the Palestinians to ratify the elevation of its favored PLO official.
The Bush administration and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon turned the
election into a form of blackmail, offering Palestinians the choice
of voting in their preferred candidate or being shelled, bulldozed and
starved.
President Bush immediately
congratulated Abbas in a 10-minute phone call, during which he invited
Abbas to visit the White House. This was an offer he conspicuously refused
to make to the late Yasser Arafat, whom he branded a terrorist.
British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw offered his congratulations and declared, The
Palestinian people have already demonstrated their commitment to democracy.
He went on, The challenge now is for the new president to use
his mandate to lay the foundations for a new Palestinian state.
French Foreign Minister
Michel Barnier added his voice to the general acclaim. The vote was,
he said, a victory for democracy, a first victory for peace.
President of the
European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso said, The elections went
well. The EU sent 200 observers to oversee the election process
and is one of the main financial backers of the Palestinian Authority.
There is a stark
disparity between the talk of democracy and peace from these world leaders
and the reality of the situation. Only one politician drew attention
to the circumstances under which the election was held. Former French
Prime Minister Michel Rocard, who was head of the European Union election
monitoring team, said, apparently without conscious irony, that it was
unique in the world to have general elections conducted democratically
under foreign military occupation.
The election was
held on terms imposed by the US and Israel, the latter having occupied
the West Bank and Gaza since the 1967 war in contravention of UN resolutions.
Even the conditions for campaigning and voting were dictated by the
Israeli armed forces.
The US and Israel
had demanded that the election platform call for an end to violent opposition
to Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, and
made clear that Abbas was their preferred candidate.
It would indeed
be unique if a democratic election could be held under foreign military
occupation. But this is the new doctrine emanating from the White House.
Bush is insistent that elections will go ahead under the military occupation
in Iraq. The Palestinian and Iraqi elections serve the interests of
a propaganda campaign that claims that US foreign policy is to introduce
democracy into the Middle East.
Palestinian leaders
close to Abbas have been only too happy to accept the fraudulent claim
that the US is seeking to extend democracy in the region. Ziad Abu Amr
said that the result could be the beginning of a new era.
He went on, We may be laying the foundation for the second working
democracy in the Middle East.
Abbas, echoed by
the international media, was quick to claim that he had won a landslide
victory. He won 62 per cent of the vote, which, on the face of it, is
a sizeable majority. His nearest rival, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, who is
associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
but was standing as an independent, got 20 per cent of the vote. Abbas
was chosen by Fatah, the largest organisation within the PLO, to be
its presidential candidate following the death of Arafat in November.
More significant
than Abbas margin of victory was the low voter turnout. The Palestinian
Authority have refused so far to publish an official figure, but press
reports indicate that less than half of eligible voters cast ballots.
The low poll was
despite the fact that voting was extended by two hours in an attempt
to increase the turnout. The rules on residency were also changed during
the election in an attempt to boost numbers. An extra 30,000 votes were
added by these measures.
In East Jerusalem,
the Israeli authorities made voting difficult in accordance with their
insistence that the city is an integral part of Israel. They forced
Palestinians there to cast absentee ballots and did not permit voting
to begin until the afternoon. But the generally low poll cannot be accounted
for in this way.
The low participation
reflected enormous skepticism among Palestinians, if not outright opposition,
to the entire process, as well as lack of enthusiasm for the presumptive
victor.
Abbas, who for a
time was Arafats prime minister, sought to wrap himself in Arafats
mantle after declaring himself the winner of the election, saying, I
present this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat, and I present it
to our people, to our martyrs, and to 11,000 prisoners of war
in Israeli jails. A veteran leader of Fatah, long-time financial manager
of the PLO, and multi-millionaire who made his fortune in exile, Abbas
played a key role in the Oslo Accords and opposed the four-year armed
Palestinian uprising.
Negotiations with
Arafat broke down at the Camp David talks in 2000 because Arafat would
not accept the Israeli demand that the Palestinians give up Jerusalem.
Even though the logic of his bourgeois nationalist political perspective
demanded that he come to an agreement, he retained a personal commitment
to the aspirations of the Palestinian people, to which he had devoted
his entire adult life.
Sundays election
was organised with unseemly haste after the death of Arafat in order
to shoehorn Abbas into office. The US and Israel have made clear that
they expect the new president to quickly move to suppress Hamas and
other groups that oppose the so-called peace process and
support armed actions, including suicide bombings, against the Israelis.
It remains to be seen whether Abbas will be able to satisfy the demands
of the Israeli and Western governments that have praised his election.
The nature of the
election indicates the character of any state that might be formed on
the basis of a deal with Israel and the US. It is simply not possible
to build a viable state or economy out of the scattered enclaves that
have been defined as Palestinian territory. Whatever agreement Abbas
is able to reach would leave the Palestinian people politically oppressed
and economically impoverished. Only a tiny minority, like Abbas himself,
would benefit from the funds allocated for the Palestinian Authority
by the European Union and other donors. This would be a recipe for a
corrupt regime of patronage, whose assigned task would be the suppression
of popular resistance.
Sharon has expressed
his willingness to meet with Abbas, but stressed that, The main
thing that needs to be concentrated on now, following yesterdays
election, is that the Palestinians take action in the field of terrorism.
The test for Abbas, he said would be, the way he battles terror
and acts to dismantle its infrastructure.
One of the main
objections that Sharon and Bush had to Arafat was that he was unable
or unwilling to suppress the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad
and Hamas. They are now putting pressure on Abbas to move against these
organisations.
Hamas and Islamic
Jihad boycotted the presidential election, but both have accepted Abbass
legitimacy. They have expressed their willingness to move towards a
ceasefire. Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said, We will work
with Mahmoud Abbas in what we believe is a sensitive coming period.
The willingness
of Islamic Jihad and Hamas to accept Abbass leadership point to
the essential bankruptcy of a nationalist perspective, whether in a
secular guise or in the form of religious fundamentalism. Neither secular
nor Islamic nationalism has been able to offer the Palestinian people
the prospect of a secure and peaceful future.
In his election
campaign, Abbas made promises about bringing the refugees home and regaining
control of East Jerusalem. To the extent that he won support, it was
largely on this basis. However, Bush and Sharon will not allow him to
carry out these promises.
Sharon has now won
parliamentary support for his proposal to pull out of Gaza, but this
plan does not offer any positive prospect for the Palestinians. Israels
construction of a wall around the Palestinian territories is proceeding.
The residents of Gaza will find that they have exchanged a direct military
occupation for something resembling a prison camp or ghetto. Israeli
troops may be absent on a day-to-day basis, but Israel will still control
the air space and reserve the right to send in troops at any time.
The illegal Israeli
settlements in Gaza are to be removed under Sharons unilateral
plan, but settlements on the West Bank will be extended. They will be
linked by a network of military roads which cut up land that is supposedly
under Palestinian control and make daily life a permanent torment.
Whatever deal Abbas
attempts to put together in the next weeks, no credibility can be given
to the illusion touted by world leaders and the liberal press that Sharons
withdrawal from Gaza will lead to anything other than a
continuation of the bloody suppression of the Palestinian people.