Ten candidates will run in the Palestinian Authority's presidential election to replace Yasser Arafat, officials said on Thursday after finalizing the list of contenders for the Jan. 9 race. Heading the list was Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor as the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as well as Marwan Barghouthi, a leader of the Palestinian uprising, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail.
Abbas, a moderate who will be representing the mainstream Fatah faction, had been seen as the frontrunner in the election until Barghouthi's candidacy was submitted shortly before a deadline on Wednesday night. Barghouthi, the most popular choice among Palestinians to succeed Arafat, told his wife during a prison visit that he wanted to run in the election as an independent candidate.
His candidacy has upset Abbas's chances and thrown the Palestinian political arena into turmoil. Palestinian officials have called on Barghouthi to withdraw his candidacy to maintain unity among Palestinian ranks. "Candidates have until midnight on Dec. 15 to withdraw their candidacy," Rami Hamdullah, Secretary-General of the Central Elections Committee (CEC), told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Hamdullah said so far 71 percent of the Palestinian electorate, or 1,282,524 Palestinians, had registered to vote. "The CEC has approved 10 applications and rejected two applications due to ineligibility," he said. The snap election was called to replace Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority after he died of an undisclosed illness at a French hospital.
The eight other candidates are: - Abdel Sattar Qassem - Independent
- Bassam Salhi - Palestine People Party
- Tayssir Khaled - Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- Abdel Karim Shbier - Independent
- Hassan khreisheh - Independent [Gesundheit!]
- Abdel Halim al-Ashqar - Independent
- Alsaied Barakah - Independent
- Mustafa Barghouthi - Independent
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