Abbas’s Fatah in rare congress as succession talk builds

Ramallah, Palestine — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party holds its first congress since 2009 on Tuesday as the 81-year-old leader seeks to close ranks and fend off a key rival. While Abbas’s advisers insist the congress is being held because it is overdue, some analysts see it as an opportunity for him to sideline allies of his exiled longtime rival Mohammed Dahlan. Talk of who will eventually succeed Abbas as Palestinian president has intensified, with the ageing leader not having publicly designated a successor. A recent hospitalization for a heart test has only added to such talk, but Abbas has maintained that he has no intention of stepping down anytime soon. Arab nations have reportedly been pressuring Abbas to allow Dahlan to return in hopes that it will help lead to a smooth transition. The congress to last up to five days in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah is expected to be key for the future of the secular party and the Palestinian Authority it controls. It is to include elections for Fatah’s 23-member central committee — in which Abbas serves as president — and its 132-member revolutionary council, considered Fatah’s parliament. The 1,400 Fatah officials invited to attend the congress are to vote for 18 members of the central committee and 80 seats on the revolutionary council, while the rest are to be nominated. Observers see the reduced number of officials to vote — down from more than 2,000 in 2009 — as part of a move to exclude Dahlan supporters. Now in exile in the United Arab Emirates, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah in 2011 and has faced a series of legal cases since. Abbas’s term as Palestinian president officially ended in 2009 but there has been no election since due to an ongoing dispute between his party and its main rival, Islamist movement Hamas. The Palestinian parliament has not met since 2007. Fatah — which controls the West Bank — and Hamas have been at loggerheads since the latter seized the Gaza Strip in a near civil war in 2007. Dahlan fell from grace in June 2007 after the humiliating rout of his forces by Hamas in week-long street battles that saw the Islamists expel Fatah from the coastal enclave. The Gaza-born politician was expelled from Fatah in 2011 over allegations of financial corruption and murder. The Palestinian high court in 2015 upheld a presidential decree lifting Dahlan’s parliamentary immunity, sparking condemnation from civil society activists. That “cannot be taken out of context: one of political infighting within Fatah around the person of lawmaker Dahlan,” political analyst Jihad Harb said of the lifting of his immunity. Fatah has become increasingly intolerant of dissent from the party line, Harb said. The party is the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organization and led the movement to sign the 1993 Oslo Accords that gave birth to the Palestinian Authority. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad -- the two most powerful forces in Gaza -- have never joined the PLO. Recent opinion polls have suggested most Palestinians would like Abbas to step down. Political analyst Abdel Majid Abu Sweilam says that, beyond staving off Abbas’s rivals, the congress also aims to reinforce Fatah’s hold within the institutions of the Palestinian Authority. The congress will also address the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, stalled since early 2014. It will be Fatah’s seventh congress since 1965 and the first since 2009. The 2009 meeting saw younger officials enter the central committee including Marwan Barghouti, currently imprisoned, as well as Jibril Rajoub and Dahlan. Polls have shown that Barghouti would win if an election for Palestinian president were held today, but he is jailed for life for murder by Israel over his role in the second Palestinian intifada. Rajoub, a former head of intelligence, now leads the Palestinian Football Association and has been an advocate for the Palestinian cause within the sport. — AFP Key dates in life of Palestinian president Abbas March 26, 1935: Born in Safed in the Galilee, which was then in Palestine, today in northern Israel. Goes into exile in Syria in 1948 when Israel is founded. Studies law at Damascus university. 1959: Living in the Gulf, Abbas with Yasser Arafat founds Fatah, a secular movement that carries out armed operations against Israel from 1965, becoming the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), created on May 28, 1964. He follows the PLO from Beirut to Tunis, entering its executive committee in 1983. November 15, 1988: On his initiative, the Palestine National Council, the parliament in exile, recognizes de facto the existence of Israel, rejects terrorism and proclaims an independent Palestinian state. From 1974, Abbas becomes the first high-ranking Palestinian to initiate contacts with left-wing Israeli figures. September 13, 1993: Abbas signs the Oslo accords on Palestinian autonomy in Washington with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres. Abbas was the chief architect of the accords on the Palestinian side. September 9, 1994: Returning to Palestinian territory two months after Arafat, Abbas seeks to visit his birthplace but delays his visit after hostile Israeli demonstrations. May 22, 1996: Becomes the PLO's number two, leading difficult peace negotiations with Israel. March 19, 2003: Accepts Arafat's proposal to become prime minister, a post created under international pressure in the midst of the second Palestinian intifada. Stands down in September after deep differences with Arafat. January 9, 2005: Elected president of the Palestinian Authority, having been propelled to the PLO leadership after Arafat died on November 11, 2004. Islamists boycott the vote. His term, which expired in 2009, has since been extended because Palestinian divisions have prevented new elections. January 25, 2006: The Islamist group Hamas wins parliamentary elections -- the last held in the Palestinian territories -- ending Fatah's long-standing dominance. It is the beginning of a bloody trial of strength for Abbas with Hamas, which leads the government from March 2006 to June 2007 before taking over the Gaza Strip, confining Fatah to the West Bank. November 29, 2012: Faced with an impasse in the peace process, Abbas secures for Palestine non-member observer status at the United Nations, where its flag is hoisted for the first time in 2015. Several European parliaments recognize Palestine. — AFP