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Last update - 00:00 13/02/2008
Fatah undergoing major democratic reform to compete with Hamas, Fayyad
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: gaza, west bank, fatah, hamas

RAMALLAH - Fatah is undergoing unprecedented internal reforms to democratize the ailing movement in the face of the electoral threat from political rivals such as Hamas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The reforms include .

"Over the last few months, Fatah has undergone a change the likes of which have not taken place in the past 19 years," Azzam al-Ahmed, a Fatah leader in the West Bank, said in an interview with Haaretz. "The movement understood that without closing ranks, reorganizing from the administrative perspective and rejuvenating the cadre of members, we will have difficulty facing the two most significant challenges: Hamas and Israel."
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But Ahmed didn't mention another threat Fatah faces: the one posed by Prime Minister Fayyad, who is not a Fatah member. The processes Fayyad has set in motion - a return of order to the West Bank's streets, raising an unusually large amount of money from abroad, and creating a clean image - have worried Fatah leaders that in the next election, the big danger will come not from Hamas but from a party such as Fayyad's Third Way.

Former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia has made it clear that Fatah is concerned about being replaced.

"If Israel and the United States insist on creating alternatives to Fatah, or a successor, that will have a decided influence on the political process," he told reporters a few days ago, apparently referring to the warm reception Fayyad received in Washington and Jerusalem. "Without Fatah, there will be no process."

The organization of Fatah's membership rolls may be the most important of the movement's reforms, which in large part got underway after Hamas took over Gaza last June.

Until now, any Palestinian who wanted to consider himself a Fatah member could do so without registering or taking any other action. This meant that a Palestinian who wanted to participate in the primary for the legislative council in 2005 could do so without any supervision.

This led to a great deal of fraud, as well as intense competition between Fatah members for a spot in parliament - thus splitting the Fatah vote and ultimately giving way to Fatah's painful election defeat by Hamas in 2006, even though a greater number of people actually voted for Fatah.

Fatah has registered some 300,000 members in the West Bank and Gaza using its recently completed registration system, which took several months to put together. Now Palestinians who want to join the movement must fill out a registration form that has been distributed in the West Bank and say how long they have been members of the organization, bringing references to vouch for them.

Once their membership is approved, they will pay about NIS 60, for which they will receive a membership card with their name, place of birth, regional affiliation and member number.

In addition, Fatah is holding elections on three levels: neighborhood, city/village and district. About half the elections on all levels are over, with elections slated to take place in East Jerusalem in two days. The next few weeks will see elections in Bethlehem, Tul Karm and Qalqilyah.

The winners in the district elections are supposed to participate in the movement's sixth general conference - the primary election - alongside representatives from Arab states, Europe and the United States. Fatah is slated to elect a new top-level leadership at the conference, though no date has been set.

It's hard to tell if the reforms will revive Fatah enough to bring it back to power in Gaza or prevent it from losing in the West Bank as well. As a leading Palestinian analyst put it, this may be a case of "too little, too late."

But Ahmed sounds optimistic.

"I can promise you, if we know how to organize the movement, the initiative will be in our hands again," he said. "In any elections that take place in the future, Hamas will not win as it did in 2006."

Related articles:
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      1.   Fatah needs Palestinian legitimacy, not Israeli legitimacy 06:54  |  Natallie Durson 13/02/08
      2.   Re Natallie Durson Comment 07:18  |  Jerrold Cohen 13/02/08
      3.   to # 1 07:19  |  Anwar 13/02/08
      4.   to #1 yes you`r absolutly right. 07:33  |  anwar 13/02/08
      5.   The Palestinian people deserve decent leaders 09:52  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 13/02/08
      6.   Fayyad is an unelected nobody 10:24  |  Clickfool 13/02/08
      7.   Fayyad is an unelected nobody 10:24  |  Clickfool 13/02/08
      8.   Margie`s "decent" Palestinian leaders #5 10:32  |  Clickfool 13/02/08
      9.   Clickfool stick to Sussex 11:02  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 13/02/08
      10.   Never, Fatah is too corrupt to the core 11:44  |  El-Birawi 13/02/08
      11.   Fatah, too corrput to the core, part II 11:54  |  El-Birawi 13/02/08
      12.   For Margie, on Sussex # 9 11:55  |  Clickfool 13/02/08
      13.   Neither one has clean hands 13:57  |  Petra 13/02/08
      14.   the gamble goes on. w`jewry/us/isr is still 15:14  |  bozhidar balkas 13/02/08
      15.   Clickfool 15:22  |  Sakis 13/02/08
      16.   # 6 Clicky...Fayyad was head of Pal Treasury 15:49  |  Lynn 13/02/08
      17.   Fatah is inapt and will never succeeded 16:49  |  Jwad El Nablusi 13/02/08
      18.   Fayyads "Third Way Party" ! 16:58  |  Stephen. 13/02/08
      19.   i have copied this to every sad person i know 17:04  |  v hardman 13/02/08
      20.   # 2 Jerrold Cohen....Fatah got more votes 17:12  |  Lynn 13/02/08
      21.   fatah fell out of favor long ago 17:17  |  abbas=filthy puppet 13/02/08
      22.   So, Hamas is the more democratic. 17:37  |  Nick Ferriman 13/02/08
      23.   El-Birawi ( 10+11), why don´t you say in short that Fatah is not 18:22  |  Karl 13/02/08
      24.   Jerrold Cohen 18:59  |  Netanel 13/02/08
      25.   Good Idea if they actually do it 19:44  |  Mark Lincoln 13/02/08
      26.   No Nick #17, Hamas is anti-democratic 19:55  |  Polybios 13/02/08
      27.   Forget about Gaza 20:22  |  Yonatan 13/02/08
      28.   El-Birawi - What are you afraid of? 20:48  |  Yonatan 13/02/08
      29.   A pox on both houses 21:19  |  Morris Valentine 13/02/08
      30.   25 dear morris. i know of no occupied region, 22:54  |  bozhidar balkas 13/02/08
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