Palestinians, Israelis fall into turmoil

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel sacked a key coalition partner yesterday, and Marwan Barghouthi, the jailed uprising leader, decided to run for president of the Palestinian Authority next month, plunging Israeli and Palestinian politics into disarray.

The two events underscored the internal divisions plaguing Israelis and Palestinians as they try to renew peace efforts in the aftermath of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death last month.

Sharon's crisis, which had been brewing for days and left him without a majority in parliament, means he will have to scramble to find new coalition partners to keep his government afloat and keep his plan to withdraw Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank on track.

Barghouthi's decision, meanwhile, surprised even his political allies and threatened to split the Palestine Liberation Organization's dominant Fatah faction in two.

Last Friday, the 45-year-old Barghouthi agreed not to challenge Arafat's longtime deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, for the presidency when elections are held Jan. 9.

Both men are Fatah members, but while Abbas, who served briefly as prime minister under Arafat, is the candidate of the Old Guard establishment, the younger Barghouthi enjoys wider public support for the prominent role he played in the Palestinian uprising that broke out in September 2000.

Barghouthi, who is serving five life terms after being convicted last June for organizing attacks on Israelis, changed his position after meeting his wife and two Palestinian Cabinet ministers in prison for two hours yesterday afternoon in the southern Israeli town of Beersheba. Fadwa Barghouthi then rushed back to Ramallah in the West Bank and filed the papers for her husband's candidacy in time to meet a midnight deadline.

''I officially presented Marwan's candidacy for presidential elections," she told reporters after emerging from the offices of the Central Elections Commission, where she presented 5,000 signatures of Barghouthi supporters and paid a $3,000 bank deposit.

She read out a statement from Barghouthi that said: ''I am running in this democratic battle . . . to achieve peace on the basis of justice, freedom, the return of Palestinian refugees, and freedom for our prisoners."

Neither she nor other Palestinian officials would explain further Barghouthi's decision to compete.

Further complicating the political process, the Islamic Hamas group announced yesterday it would boycott the vote because it did not include legislative and municipal elections. Palestinian officials had hoped Hamas's participation in the vote would mark a first step toward the group's integration in the political process and away from militancy.

Six Palestinians are running for president in the first Palestinian Authority election since 1996, when residents of the West Bank and Gaza elected Arafat by a huge majority. But the 69-year-old Abbas, backed by Fatah's internal leadership bodies, was considered the only candidate with a real chance of winning.

Abbas was named chairman of the PLO when Arafat died and has been running the Palestinian Authority for the past month.

But while he helped found Fatah with Arafat in the 1960s, the usually understated Abbas has never enjoyed broad popularity, especially among militants and young Fatah members who contend that the Old Guard has refused to share power.

Opinion polls conducted before Arafat died indicated Abbas's support hovering around 3 percent.

Barghouthi's endorsement of Abbas last week was seen as a boost for the older leader. But Kadoura Fares, a Cabinet minister and Barghouthi associate who saw him twice in prison in the past week, said Barghouthi was not without grievances.

''Marwan feels a great amount of bitterness towards the PLO leadership because they didn't do anything when he was arrested and they didn't, at the very least, protest the conditions of his imprisonment," Fares said in an interview on Tuesday, a day before Barghouthi's reversal. He said Barghouthi was also angry that Fatah did not integrate younger leaders in its leadership bodies.

Nevertheless, Barghouthi decided last week to withdraw his candidacy to avoid splitting the party, Fares said.

''The presence of two candidates from Fatah would expose us to problems that could lead to a rift," he said in his Ramallah office. Fares did not return phone messages left yesterday after Barghouthi's decision to run.

In the Tuesday interview, Fares said internal polls indicated 52 percent of Palestinians would vote for Barghouthi if he ran for president and 22 percent would back Abbas.

But since Israel is refusing to free him, Fares said, many Palestinians were worried that a victory for Barghouthi would leave them leaderless and in permanent limbo.

''Israel would tell the world that his election proves the Palestinians are not serious about fulfilling their obligations," he said.

Other Palestinians said a deal whereby Barghouthi would pull out of the race in exchange for Abbas's pledge to insist that Israel release him had apparently failed.

At least one member of Sharon's Cabinet believes Israel should consider freeing Barghouthi. But Sharon, who suffered a major setback in parliament yesterday, has ruled it out.

The Israeli leader must now assemble a new coalition after firing members of the centrist Shinui party yesterday for voting in parliament against the proposed 2005 state budget.

The bill failed to pass its first reading, in part because it includes a $65 million allocation to ultra-Orthodox parties, which the staunchly secular Shinui opposed.

Some analysts said Sharon had engineered the crisis to dump Shinui and forge a new partnership with the opposition Labor party and at least one ultra-Orthodox party, thereby ensuring a majority for his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank next summer.

But with Labor in the throes of a power struggle, it was not immediately clear if most people in the party would endorse joining the government or if Sharon's own Likud faction would accept Labor.

Sharon's only alternative would be to call an early election next year. If he does not expand his coalition, early elections could be forced on him through a no-confidence motion in parliament brought by the opposition in the coming weeks.

''Some Israeli parties are acting like spoiled children," said Tzipi Livni, a member of Sharon's Likud party and a minister in his Cabinet. ''We are facing a historical moment in the coming months regarding the disengagement [from Gaza], and we find ourselves dealing with parties that are ready to risk it all by creating a coalition crisis."

Labor party leader Shimon Peres said yesterday he would consider joining the coalition to ensure the Gaza withdrawal goes ahead. Sharon plans to evacuate around 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, in a plan sharply opposed by right-wing parties and some Likud members.

But Ehud Barak, the former head of Labor who served as prime minister until he was defeated by Sharon in 2001, is against any partnership with Likud. ''It would be political suicide for us to join the government," he said yesterday.