MIDDLE EAST: Palestinians scurried for shelter under the awnings and overhangs along Salaheddin Street, the main thoroughfare in East Jerusalem, as gusts of wind whipped spray in their faces, reports Michael Jansen in Jerusalem
Was the young man at the currency exchange planning to vote? "No," he replied, asking: "When is the election?"
"Sunday," I said.
Holding the door open for me, he remarked: "Isn't the rain wonderful? We need the water."
Although the Palestinian territories always want water, the rain could not have come at a worse moment for the front-runner, Mr Mahmud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), who assumed the chairmanship of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation on the death of Mr Yasser Arafat.
His drive was just gathering some momentum when it sank in the deluge.
His nearest rival, Dr Mustafa Barghouti, a physician and reformist legislator, was stuck in the Gaza Strip yesterday when the Erez checkpoint closed after an attack on Israeli soldiers.
A spokesman said he hoped Dr Barghouti would make it back to Ramallah last night because he is due to go to Jerusalem today.
Najla, a young office worker, said as she brought me a welcome cup of steaming tea: "I am not going to vote. My friends also. We are suspicious of the Israelis. Although they say they will not punish us for voting, we do not believe them.
"They can do whatever they want. There is no one to protect us. In any case, we don't like Abu Mazen. He is just one of the old group. These people have done nothing for Jerusalem. We have been forgotten and ignored. We don't want to make the effort for someone who will do nothing for us. We want to see new faces."
"I don't like Abu Mazen," asserted Ghassan, a taxi-driver who dwells on the Mount of Olives. "I prefer Mustafa Barghouti. He is like us, a son of the soil. He has not spent his life abroad. He has been working for his people."
Dr Barghouti is a founder of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, which provide medical services for the population of the Palestinian territories.
But Ghassan said he did not plan to vote. "The Israelis might cut my health or social insurance. I have a big family. I can't afford to lose my benefits."
I hurried from the taxi into the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, a Jerusalem think-tank. Its founder and chairman, Dr Mahdi Abdel Hadi, had reserved me an interview slot after a Japanese television team.
When I asked Dr Abdel Hadi the pertinent question of the day, he replied firmly: "Yes, I'm going to vote."
"Where?" I asked. "In Jerusalem. At the general post office at the end of Salaheddin. The Israelis are going to permit some 6,000 of us to vote in the city. I live in Wadi Joz [ a neighbourhood in the eastern sector] now so I can vote here."
Most of the 90-100,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites eligible to vote have to go to towns outside the municipal boundaries of the "Greater Jerusalem" area to cast their ballots.
Dr Abdel Hadi, a sharp critic of Mr Arafat, said many Palestinians will not vote because they "feel an emptiness" following Mr Arafat's death.
"People lost the father of the nation, a historic figure, an icon. No one can fill that emptiness."
He continued: "The candidates have the same message, platform. Some are just campaigning to gain credibility for the future or to become a minister in the next cabinet. Abbas is ahead because he is backed by the political tribe of Fatah, which represents 40 per cent of the society. But he is a technocrat, a businessman, a representative, not a leader, not a fighter. He is asked to be what he is not."
Dr Abdel Hadi observed, however, "the campaign is beginning to transform him" by making him take tough stands on issues which most concern Palestinians: an end to closures, checkpoints, settlement expansion, and construction of the West Bank wall. For instance: "He has signed a document published in all the papers declaring that there can be no breakthrough [ in the peace process] without the release of prisoners."
In Dr Abdel Hadi's view: "The transitional phase will last as long as Sharon and Bush remain in office because neither is prepared to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians. But this does not mean Abbas will be able to do nothing. He will make reform and the building of the political system his priorities. Even with all the walls around us he can do a lot."
As Ghassan drove through the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina in fog and pelting rain, we passed the only proof I have seen so far that an election is imminent. A great sheet bearing the handsome, white-haired image of Abu Mazen had been suspended from the roof of a three-storey apartment block. The wind and rain had folded the material upon itself, obscuring the face of the man who would be president of the Palestinians.