Lauded abroad, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is assailed at home, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem On 3 June Mahmoud Abbas issued his long expected presidential decree postponing Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections, scheduled for 17 July, until further notice. The decision came a week after Abbas's "successful" trip to Washington and one day after Ariel Sharon announced the two men would meet on 21 June, their first since the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit in February. It was followed by the worst bout of fighting in the occupied territories since the Palestinian factions tentatively committed themselves to a ceasefire or "calm" in Cairo in March. There may not be any connection between these events, though this is not how it looks from Ramallah, Gaza, Tel Aviv and Washington. Declining comment on the merits or otherwise of deferring the PLC vote, the news was greeted in the White House with responses that ranged from "quiet relief to elation", said diplomats. The White House is not alone. Abbas's leadership is now assailed by multiple crises, less over his diplomatic strategy -- which most Palestinians, broadly, accept -- than over the domestic policies on which it rests: the ceasefire, reform of the security forces and the Palestinian Authority's democratic transformation. On 7 June five Palestinians and Chinese migrant worker were killed in three assaults in Gaza and the West Bank. Two -- an Islamic Jihad fugitive and PA police officer -- were killed during an Israeli army raid in Qabatyia near Jenin. Three -- two Palestinian workers and the Chinese -- were killed when a mortar ploughed into a packing-shed in Gaza's Ganei Tal settlement. And a sixth, possibly an Egyptian, was killed from army gunfire in the lethal zone between Gaza and Egypt. According to army sources, 14 rockets were fired on Sederot, an Israeli town on the Gaza border. Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed the mortar fire, retaliation, they said, for Israel's ongoing military attacks in the West Bank, such as the operation in Qabatyia, provocations in occupied East Jerusalem and the attempt by a messianic Jewish group on 6 June to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But few Palestinians doubt the Islamists' latest turn to arms was fuelled by what is now a clear crisis of legitimacy in the PA and its ruling faction, Fatah. Last week, officers from the PA's Military Intelligence (MI) force (whose commander, Moussa Arafat, was "retired" in April) attacked the PLC building in Gaza City, closed roads in Rafah and briefly abducted a PA diplomat on route to Egypt. On 5 June militiamen from Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AMB) laid siege to the governor's house in Nablus, wounding a bodyguard. The Gaza actions were a protest against the MI's imminent dissolution in the PA's larger National Security force, a "demotion" MI officers fear will rob them of the privileges and autonomy they enjoy in Gaza. The Nablus action was a protest over the PA's failure to provide the AMB with protection and salaries commensurate with its status as the "resistance". The PA Interior Ministry quelled the two revolts by effectively caving in to their demands: a pay-off that conveys anything but authority. These breakdowns are compounded by others. Following -- and despite -- court decision annulling election results in three Gaza municipalities where Hamas won majorities, Hamas officials have taken up office, creating a de facto situation of dual power in Gaza. The response of the factions has been to defer the re-elections indefinitely the better to defuse Hamas-Fatah tensions. A similar reasoning appears to be behind the PLC postponement. Ostensibly the reason is due to the failure to agree to a new elections law between Abbas and Fatah deputies that dominate the parliament. In fact it is over a Fatah movement fearful of losing its grip on power, and not only because of the chaos in Gaza and Nablus. Less than six weeks before the PLC poll Fatah had yet to agree to an elections law or hold primaries, let alone candidates and an agreed mechanism for selecting them. The argument of many in the movement -- including the so-called "young guard" reformists -- was that the PLC poll should be deferred until after a Fatah General Conference (FGC) was held in August. There, (it was hoped) a new leadership would be elected, united behind agreed policies, bound by a new organisational prowess and so better able to face down the electoral challenge posed by Hamas. But last week a meeting of Fatah's Revolutionary Council announced that the FGC, too, would be postponed. One Fatah leader in Bethlehem said the decision was "a scheme to destroy Fatah from within". Another -- based in Ramallah -- warned that a failure to hold primaries for the FGC and PLC might herald a formal split in the movement, between those (like imprisoned West Bank leader, Marwan Barghouti) who insist on democracy and those (like Fatah's official leader, Farouk Qaddoumi) who insist on seniority. Few Palestinians analysts believe Abbas sought the postponements. This is not only because democratic elections were cornerstone of the agreements he signed with the factions in Cairo and a condition for the ceasefire. As importantly, it is because he sees elections as vital if he is to coalesce a coalition behind his policies within Fatah. But faced with collapse he appears swayed by the advice given by the US, Europe and Egypt. In the words of one diplomat, this is to defer all elections until December so that the PA can consolidate its rule in Gaza and "win back" the popular support now flowing to Hamas. Nothing is less likely. It is true that the PA will need to renew its legitimacy and authority if it is to govern in Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied territories. But that is not going to happen through diktat. It can only happen through opening up the PA to democratic participation, institutional reform and policies to which all will be bound. The alternative is what is happening now, whether by Fatah in Ramallah or Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza: the supremacy of factional agendas over national and nationalist ones.
