RAMALLAH, West Bank — Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is a medical doctor who graduated from Moscow University in 1978 and then specialized in internal medicine and cardiology at Al-Maqassed Hospital in East Jerusalem. In 1979, he co-founded a nongovernmental organization now known as the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS); in 2002, he co-organized a political movement, Mubadara (Palestinian National Initiative), for which he ran as candidate in the 2005 presidential elections that took place two months after the November 2004 death of Yasser Arafat.

Barghouti won 19.8% of the votes when running for president against Mahmoud Abbas in 2005. He said he considered it a victory, vowing to win the next time. But there haven’t been any further national presidential elections — though elections were announced by President Abbas in October 2009 and scheduled for January 2010, then canceled in November 2009 upon a request from the Central Elections Commission.

In 2006, Barghouti was elected to the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC), a body authorized in the Oslo Accord and based in the occupied Palestinian territory. But the work of the PLC was formally suspended in 2007; Hamas had effectively lost the presence of more than half of those elected on its Change and Reform List, as at least 45 out of 74 Hamas-backed elected legislators were either charged, tried or locked up in Israeli jails for being members of the Hamas movement.

The arrests and jailing of ministers, political figures and legislators occurred continuously. In a June 2010 interview, Barghouti said of the PLC, “The reason for its freezing is mainly the fact of Israel’s arresting one-third of the members of parliament. But the second reason is because both Fatah and Hamas could not agree to meet. And if they meet under the situation where one-third of the members are in jail, how would that reflect on the voting? So all these were complications. But the main factor that is preventing the council from properly working is the arrest of about 48 members of our council.”