Amidst a great competition for leadership positions, the likes of which it has never seen before, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement “Fatah” is proceeding with arrangements to hold its eighth general conference, which will begin next Thursday, after it obtained official approval to hold it in the Egyptian arena, in addition to the Gaza and Beirut arenas, which will join the main headquarters in Ramallah.
The logistical committees formed by the Fatah movement, in the main meeting place in Ramallah, as well as in Gaza, which lacks significant resources, Beirut and Cairo, are nearing completion of the arrangements for holding the conference on the scheduled date of the 14th of this month, with its work continuing until the 16th, on which the new Central Committee and Revolutionary Council will be elected.
Accelerated preparations
During this time, the body overseeing the holding of the conference opened permanent lines of communication with the external venues, which completed the preparation of the necessary teams to facilitate the holding of the conference, including all logistical matters that rely on modern technologies in counting and counting members, in addition to linking the venues with a closed television circuit.
An official in one of the supervisory committees said that the process of counting members to obtain a legal quorum and knowing attendance will be done electronically, by scanning the special code on the identification card of each member, and that an initial trial conducted from the headquarters with the rest of the squares succeeded in testing the program.
He stressed that everyone is racing against time to finalize all the arrangements for the conference, as there will be an initial “rehearsal” to ensure the success of all the arrangements, which is being worked on to be completed next Wednesday, one day before the conference, while the technical committees are making the necessary preparations to ensure that no disruption occurs at the moment of announcing the opening of the conference sessions.
The competent authorities in Egypt had given their approval to hold the conference last Friday evening, after an official request submitted by the movement, with the aim of ensuring the participation of more than 300 members, who are present in Egypt by virtue of residency, or who came from the Gaza Strip due to the conditions of the war, and others from external arenas in the European continent or in Arab and foreign countries, and who cannot reach the main headquarters in Ramallah due to the conditions of the occupation, in addition to the released prisoners who were deported to Egypt.
It was decided that the conference would be held at the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo, and the committee in charge is racing against time to complete the necessary preparations in the short period remaining before the conference, by preparing one of the halls for the members, and connecting it to the necessary broadcasting technologies, in addition to preparing the venue not designated for these conferences, so that it becomes at least suitable for the conference.
A leading member of Fatah in Gaza told Al-Quds Al-Arabi: We do not want to repeat the experience of the Seventh Conference.
fierce competition
Amid these logistical and technical preparations, internal arrangements are being made between movement leaders and frameworks to contest the elections and compete for membership in the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council.
Officially, some conference participants announced their intention to run for election to the Revolutionary Council. For the first time in the movement's history, some members announced this decision in social media posts, while others conveyed their intention to run during internal organizational meetings, as did candidates for the Central Committee.
During these times, candidates try to gain support from members and from “organizational alliances” to ensure victory if they run.
Fatah Gaza
A leading member of the Fatah movement from the Gaza Strip told Al-Quds Al-Arabi that the organization’s leaders in the Strip do not want a repeat of the experience of the Seventh Conference, when a large number of people from Gaza ran for membership in the Revolutionary Council, which made most of them fail to garner the necessary votes to win.
At that conference, Gaza only got six members in the Revolutionary Council, while the sector's official share exceeds 30 members by direct election, in addition to the assigned share.
He pointed out that organizational meetings are being held in the movement’s eight regions in the Gaza Strip, namely the northern region, the eastern Gaza region, the western Gaza region, the central region, the central Khan Younis region, the western Khan Younis region, the eastern Khan Younis region, and the Rafah region, to agree on five members from each region to run for membership in the Revolutionary Council.
He explained that some regions have completed the agreements and selections, while others are preparing to complete the matter in the coming hours, which means there is a list of 40 members of the movement’s leadership nominated for the Revolutionary Council.
Meanwhile, other members outside the established organizational frameworks within the regions are preparing to run, including regional leaders, members of the movement's offices, and other qualified individuals. According to a movement leader in Gaza, the number of candidates from the Gaza Strip for the Revolutionary Council is expected to reach 70, a significantly lower number than those who ran in the previous conference.
A member of the Revolutionary Council told Al-Quds Al-Arabi: “The indicators confirm that a major change will take place.”
In addition to these agreements, leaders from the movement in the sector are currently putting themselves forward as candidates for membership in the Central Committee, most notably Ahmed Helles, the current head of the organization in Gaza and a member of the Central Committee, Rouhi Fattouh, head of the National Council and a member of the Central Committee, as well as Ahmed Nasr, the former secretary of the Legislative Council, and Ahmed Abu Holi, a member of the Executive Committee, who aspire to enter the Central Committee for the first time, in addition to Taysir Al-Bardini, who was agreed to put forward for membership in the Central Committee on behalf of the prisoners’ share.
Al-Zubaidi is a candidate representing the prisoners.
Regarding the agreement on the “prisoners’ quota” in the leadership of the Fatah movement that will emerge from the upcoming conference, the prisoners concluded agreements that included most of them, by choosing two of them to run for membership in the Central Committee, as the famous released prisoner Zakaria Al-Zubaidi was chosen from the West Bank, in addition to Al-Bardini from the Gaza Strip, along with 30 candidates from the West Bank and Gaza for membership in the Revolutionary Council.
Raed Abu Al-Homs, head of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, officially announced the completion of the candidates of released detainees for the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council, noting that the Palestinian leadership and the movement’s leadership honored the recently released detainees from the “Fatah” movement, by approving the membership of everyone who spent 20 years or more, which allowed the membership of 388 in the conference, including a number of released female detainees.
He said in a press statement: “The prisoners’ candidates for the Revolutionary Council were chosen according to a proportional formula for the number of released prisoners from each governorate who are members of the conference,” noting that the selection witnessed representation of all governorates without exception from the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, and the list of candidates included harmony and integration between the released prisoners inside the homeland and those exiled in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
However, a released prisoner from the movement confirmed to Al-Quds Al-Arabi that the consensus does not include everyone, and that there are released prisoners who have decided to run in the organizational elections, pointing to the nomination of Marwan Barghouti, a prisoner in Israeli prisons, for membership in the Central Committee.
Regarding the most important arena in Ramallah, where most of the movement’s leaders are located, the competition between the candidates intensifies as the day of the conference approaches.
According to what is being discussed within the movement's frameworks and closed circles, the current members of the Central Committee will run for election, with the exception of Dr. Nasser Al-Qudwa, who announced that he will not run, amid expectations that most of them will leave the position, and new members will enter.
Visits to Cairo
At this time, members of the Central Committee, who are now assured of their victory, seek to obtain high numbers of votes to demonstrate their strength within the organization's structures, while the West Bank regions, similar to what the Gaza regions did, are preparing to choose their candidates for leadership positions to ensure that their votes are not scattered.
In order to secure victory, a number of the movement’s leaders who wish to compete for membership in the Central Committee recently visited the Egyptian capital, Cairo, especially since the members participating in the Cairo arena can influence the outcome. Among the most prominent of these are Ahmed Abu Holi and Yasser Abbas, while others are making direct contact with the leaders present in Egypt.
A member of the movement’s Revolutionary Council told Al-Quds Al-Arabi, commenting on the scenarios of victory and defeat: “All possibilities are open.” He added: “The indicators confirm that there will be a major change in the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council.”
On the third day of the conference, voting will take place at a specific time in the main headquarters and the three outer squares, to choose 18 members for the Central Committee, and 80 members for the Revolutionary Council, amidst public sorting procedures linking the squares and the main headquarters via live broadcast within the closed circuit.
