RAMALLAH, West Bank — Fatah's decision to expel longtime senior member Nasser al-Qudwa has highlighted divisions within Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' party ahead of parliamentary elections. 

In early March, Qudwa, one of the movement’s most prominent leaders and nephew of late President Yasser Arafat, had announced his intention to form a separate electoral list that he would lead to run against Fatah's own candidates in the May vote. On March 11, Fatah released a statement saying that it had given Qudwa 48 hours to reverse this decision or be expelled from the party, yet he failed to comply.

Fatah has been trying to play up the party's unity in the lead-up to the elections. In a statement issued by the Fatah Central Committee following a meeting March 8, the movement said it will run in the upcoming Palestinian elections in a unified list that garners the support of the movement’s members. Yet the statement did not mention the disagreements between some of the Central Committee members over the formation of this list, and also had ignored Qudwa's announcement on his own list .

The committee's statement also did not mention conditions set by another leader, namely Marwan Barghouti, for him to support the unified list.