Palestinian officials urged Israel today to curb military operations as they began to register candidates for an election to replace Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president.
Election officials said the January 9th presidential ballot may be delayed unless Israel facilitated free and fair elections by redeploying troops away from Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and halting military operations.
"We have been repeatedly demanding that Israel should withdraw its forces from Palestinian areas so that our teams can do their job without obstacles," Mr Ammar Dweik, the head of the Palestinian central elections commission said.
"Any assassination, incursion or curfews will definitely affect the election timetable," he said. Israel has promised to do "everything that is needed" for democratic Palestinian elections, including probably allowing Palestinians from East Jerusalem to participate in the ballot. The election is to take place 60 days after Arafat died of an undisclosed illness at a French hospital on November 11.
The leading candidate is expected to be Arafat's replacement as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Mr Mahmoud Abbas. The ruling Fatah faction was expected to announce that Mr Abbas would run as its sole candidate to replace Arafat in a meeting today.
Fatah enjoys wide support among Palestinians. The militant Islamic group Hamas, which has a support base of about 30 per cent in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is not expected to field a candidate as the group wants the Palestinian Authority to hold parliamentary and municipal elections as well.
Five Palestinian factions, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which rejects peace negotiations with Israel, have agreed to choose a joint candidate.
Already two independent candidates have announced plans to run in the poll. They are Mr Abdel-Sattar Qassem, a longtime critic of Arafat, and Mr Talal Seder, one of Arafat's loyalists.
Meanwhile, European Union envoy Mr Mark Otte called on Israel and the Palestinians to take reciprocal steps as part of a US-backed "road map" to peace and not to issue preconditions. The Palestinian Authority, responding yesterday to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's seemingly softer terms for resuming peace talks, rejected any preconditions for dialogue.
Mr Sharon, proposing what he called a test for a new Palestinian leadership, said it could show its desire for peace by ending anti-Israeli "incitement" even before the crackdown he has long demanded it launch against militants.
Israeli analysts called Mr Sharon's comments a departure from his long-standing condition that the Palestinian Authority must dismantle militant groups, as the road map demands, before direct talks between the sides can resume. Palestinian Foreign Minister Mr Nabil Shaath responded by saying: "We are not setting any preconditions except what is in the road map and I think that what Mr. Sharon ought to do."