Fewer than expected Palestinians voted in the Palestinian presidential elections -- and those that did may be disappointed, writes Graham Usher in Ramallah "We extend our hands to our neighbours. We are ready for peace -- peace based on justice. We hope that their response will be positive," said Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, the day after his victory in the Palestinian Authority presidential elections. It was a sincere wish. But already the morning after felt colder than the night before. Exit polls had proclaimed Abbas winning 70 per cent of the vote in a 70 per cent turn out, triggering motorcades of his Fatah movement taking to the streets of Ramallah amid fusillades of celebratory gunfire. In fact, Abbas won 62 per cent of vote in a turn out of 45 per cent, an abstention of the Islamist Hamas movement was swift to claim as a "victory" for its call to boycott the presidential poll. Nor was Abbas's stature enhanced by the behaviour of certain of his supporters, who fearing a low turn out and the Hamas claim pressured the Central Election Commission to extend the voting time by two hours and then brought in busloads of people to vote on the basis of their ID cards rather than the official electoral register. The fraud did not affect the outcome. But it did show just how reluctant Fatah is to give up its domination as the PA's ruling party. Still, coming some 40 percentage points ahead of his nearest challenger (the independent pro-democracy activist Mustafa Barghouti), few would deny the election delivered Abbas a mandate for his leadership and political programme: immediate renewal of negotiations with Israel, further Palestinian reform and an end to the four-year armed intifada. All three present challenges but the most important is the first, says PA cabinet minister, Ghassan Khatib. "The basic condition for progress is for the United States to invite the two sides immediately to resume negotiations on implementing the roadmap. For the Palestinians this means further reform and a 100 per cent effort to reduce Palestinian violence. For the Israelis it means ending their violence against our people, stopping the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land and lifting the sanctions and restrictions that are destroying our economy. Anything less will be insufficient". But Israel and the US are offering less. While Ariel Sharon is prepared to "coordinate" certain security arrangements for his plan to withdraw from most of Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank, "disengagement" remains a unilateral Israeli decision. Entrée to the roadmap depends on the PA taking concerted action against the Palestinian armed resistance, something Abbas has said he will not do. The result for the new Palestinian leader is the same snare that entangled the old one, says Palestinian analyst George Giacaman. "Abu Mazen has to connect the disengagement to the roadmap if he is to convince the Palestinians that there is a credible peace process. Otherwise we have the same contradiction that faced us after the Camp David summit in 2000 -- the existence of a Palestinian Authority without a political process. As we saw then, this is a contradiction that is not sustainable in the long run." Abbas's second challenge is Palestinian reform. His approach here is to re-establish the PA as centralised authority before diffusing political power through further Palestinian elections. The key change is to streamline the PA's dozen or so security forces down to three and bring them under a National Security Council headed by an empowered prime minister. In the meantime, Abbas has deferred parliamentary elections until July and internal Fatah elections until August in the hope that reform, an increased sense of Palestinian personal security and progress on the roadmap will strengthen him within the ranks of Fatah and within Palestinian public opinion generally. The danger of course is that failure in any of these three spheres will almost certainly lead to a challenge to his leadership within Fatah and to his policies in the parliamentary elections. Auguries of these schisms were seen in the presidential campaign when Fatah's imprisoned General Secretary, Marwan Barghouti, briefly ran against his movement's official candidate. "Fatah's unity behind Abu Mazen is wholly tentative," says Giacaman. "Any controversial position he takes could easily see Fatah turn against him. He is subject to severe limits. And he will not be able to withstand them: Abu Mazen is not Arafat". Finally, there is Abbas immediate policy challenge -- to reach some kind of agreement between the PA and Palestinian factions, including the Islamists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Abbas wants to achieve a ceasefire first and then a "national accord" based on the outcome of the parliamentary elections. Hamas wants the reverse: a power sharing formula agreed now ahead of the elections since this is what will decide whether it will participate in them. Despite months of "dialogue", this chicken-versus-egg debate has yet to be resolved. Few doubt that it can be. There is a strong constituency within Hamas in favor of participation. The Islamists terms for a ceasefire are also known: "a guaranteed end to Israeli aggression against our people, the release of prisoners and an acceptance by Israel of our rights," says Hamas West Bank spokesman Hassan Youssef. But Hamas also wants a stake in the next Palestinian leadership commensurate to its strength on the ground. If Abbas and Fatah refuse this "partnership" -- either for sectarian reasons or under pressure from Israel and the US - the Islamists response will be the same as it was the day after his election: a barrage of mortar attacks on settlements within Gaza and Israeli towns beyond. Peace, reform and ending the armed Intifada are immense obstacles, with failure in one almost certainly meaning blockage on the other. But perhaps the severest test facing Abbas are the expectations raised by his campaign. In Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus and East Jerusalem those who voted for him did so in the belief that he can somehow remove the checkpoints, free prisoners, provide jobs, deliver personal security, end the settlement construction and pull down the West Bank wall -- in short, that he will end the occupation. It is a recipe for disappointment, says Giacaman. "Palestinians voted for hope. And this is dangerous. Because if Abu Mazen fails to deliver on hope, he will fall again and the prospects then, truly, will be dire".
