The Palestinian election results are impressive and satisfactory in crucial respects. The Middle East peace process is strengthened and consolidated. The high turnout yielded a clear cut result. International observers judged the results to be free and fair and there was much evidence of sophisticated voting patterns.
Mr Yasser Arafat's triumph in the presidential, election is tempered by the election of a number of his critics to the national authority. Despite its undoubted shortcomings the outcome confers a blend off legitimacy and democracy that augurs well for the forthcoming negotiations with Israel and for a future Palestinian state.
It is a blend that will be severely tested in the next few years. Mr Arafat's autocratic style has offended many of his most discerning supporters, whom he badly needs to have on board for the negotiations. They have now established themselves as a legitimate," opposition, with whom he would be well advised to, engage constructively. It is noteworthy that they out performed the more ideologically motivated Islamist Hamjas opposition, which called for a boycott of the, elections, as well as the externally based secular position, which argues that the elections were illegitimate because the exiled communities were excluded.
But Mr Arafat is fortunate to have such a solid political basis for opening the talks on the future status of Jerusalem, the nature of the Palestinian state and its relations with the Palestinian diaspora.
This result will encourage Mr Arafat's Israeli negotiating partners to step up the momentum of the peace process and the political process with which it is linked. It is likely to be seen as confirmation of the path laid down by Yitzhak Rabin before his assassination, which has been enthusiastically and skillfully continued by Mr Shimon Peres. Suggestions that the Israeli elections this year may now be brought forward to the summer illustrate what a constructive dynamic could be involved if Mr Peres, too, is given a fresh mandate. It is gratifying for those who designed this peace process to see it gather such momentum after long delays and so many obstacles.
There is increasing evidence that it could be accompanied by progress in the talks between Israel, Syria and Lebanon. President Assad of Syria has been deeply impressed by the change in Israeli public opinion since the Rabin assassination, and Lebanese leaders share his assessment. The possibility that the two peace processes could shore one another up is another hopeful sign in a divided and fractured region. It is worth recalling that the original notion of stabilising the Middle East which underlay the Madrid conference in 1992, after the end of the Gulf War, was predicated on precisely this dynamic.
It remains vulnerable to upsets and reverses nonetheless not least by the various forces at play in these elections. It will take rare political skills and determined international support to ensure that they are held at bay long enough to allow trust and bargaining to triumph.