Arafat Power Base Eroding -- Which May Be Good For Palestine

by N Janardhan

"Arafat's power is eroding, as his own people demand a change in leadership style and reassessment of policies and goals," said United Arab Emirates (UAE) political analyst Ghassan Al Jashi, of the Arabic 'Al Itihad'.

"The Cabinet's resignation is not a sudden development. It was waiting to happen ever since Arafat announced reforms but didn't enforce them on the ground," he added.

"Rising media condemnation, angry street protests and the creation of new Palestinian political groups were indications enough that an anti-Arafat front had begun to emerge," added Jashi.

The Palestinian Cabinet resigned on Sept. 12 rather than face a vote of no confidence from a rebellious parliament. Faced with an almost certain defeat from the MPs, who said a shake-up announced in June did not go far enough, the Cabinet quit. A new Cabinet is likely to be proposed in about two weeks.

The MPs' major demands are for more transparency, a clampdown on corruption, stronger leadership and clearer policies about Palestine's future.

Ordinary people and politicians, particularly those from Arafat's Fatah faction, are demanding that he create stronger and just institutions and that he stop monopolizing power, perhaps by introducing the post of prime minister to act as a counterbalance to the office of the president.

"When legislators like me, who never said 'no' to Arafat, now say 'no', then things are really bad," said Salah Al Tamari, a Fatah MP. "Arafat is getting the message. We will see change," he added in an interview on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television on Sunday.

Arafat, already under attack from Israel and the United States, is finding the internal pressure too hard to ignore, according to his critics at home. The continued Israeli occupation and the PNA's "lack of efficiency" have made it more urgent for people and their representatives to speak out openly, Tamari said.

In recent months, new local groups have been emerging to try to propose or shape political reforms in Palestine.

Mustafa Barghouthi, a doctor in the West Bank town of Ramallah, about 25 kilometers north of Jerusalem, founded the Palestinian National Initiative in June with civil society representatives as well as established politicians in an effort to create an alternative to the PNA and to give Palestinian democracy more teeth.

In July, a new group called the Movement for Palestinian National Solidarity was announced in Amman, Jordan. It proposed a confederation between a future Palestinian state and Israel, an idea different from what the PNA has been projecting.

The groups said that the issue of reforms was far more than just a personality issue around Arafat. The problem, they said, is not Arafat but the Palestinian political system, which is not representative enough.

"The situation the people are in is a complete catastrophe. For some time the PNA has been crumbling, but the (Israeli) re-occupation has revealed to the people the great defects of the leadership," said Jashi.

"If Arafat doesn't act now to assuage the anger, the chance of the Islamic movement Hamas gaining in popularity cannot be ruled out," he added.

According to UAE-based Palestinian businessman Mohmoud Mansour: "Hopes that the two-year-old 'intifadah' (uprising) would end occupation and lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state have been dashed, leading to discontent and the present crisis."

Many say it is not hard to understand why the Palestinians are angry with their leader.

A report by UN Middle East coordinator Terje Roed-Larsen in August said the paralysis of the Palestinian economy has driven the unemployment rate to 75 percent across the occupied territories and poverty to alarming levels.

Official statistics from the Palestinian labor ministry put unemployment at more than 67 percent in Gaza and 48 percent in the West Bank.

Israel's re-occupation of West Bank towns at the end of March has put 549,000 Palestinians out of work. That amounts to losses of about $925,000 a day in wages, statistics suggest.

"Arafat has to now unveil a plan of action that will take the people closer to their long-cherished dream of a Palestinian state. I think he got the message," said student activist Mohammed Al Ghobaisi from UAE's Sharjah University.

"The people are angry but they don't want him to step aside. They simply want him to carry out the required changes," Ghobaisi said.

Indeed, Arafat is widely expected to be re-elected in polls scheduled for January 2003.

A June opinion poll by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre found that 48 percent of people expected Arafat to win. About 41 percent gave him a favorable opinion while 29 percent found him to be a "bad" leader.

Still, that support is a far cry from what Arafat got when he was elected president of the PNA in January 1996, garnering 88 percent of the nearly 750,000 votes cast.

He remains the dominant figure in Palestinian politics and so far, no leading politician has declared readiness to challenge him. But critics say that if Arafat ignores the writing on the wall, he will be inviting further erosion of his popularity and power, and fueling further calls for his resignation.

Many believe that given the present mood, change certainly lies ahead. For more than 30 years, Palestinian leader Arafat has dreamt of being the first president of a Palestinian state, and is unlikely to give that up even if he has to make a few compromises.