Dahlan complicates Abbas' plans for Palestinian elections
The upcoming Palestinian elections are expected to stir a new confrontation between Fatah and Mohammed Dahlan’s movement should the reconciliation efforts exerted by some Arab countries fail to unify the Fatah movement.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — As soon as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued Jan. 15 the presidential decree setting the date for the general elections a clash erupted between Fatah and the movement led by dismissed Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan.
A day after the presidential decree was issued, Sufian Abu Zaida, a leader in Dahlan’s Democratic Reformist Current, expressed his current’s intent to participate, alongside the Fatah movement, in the elections with a unified list.
In a Facebook post Jan. 16, Abu Zaida said that should a unified list for the Fatah movement prove impossible, the Democratic Reformist Current will run in the legislative elections with an independent list of leaders and cadres of the current, adding that candidacy will be open for national social figures.
Abu Zaida’s call was rejected by the Fatah movement, which reiterated its commitment to the decisions of its leadership, referring to the movement’s decision to dismiss from its ranks members of the Democratic Reformist Current.
