Analysis: Upcoming Elections in Palestine

Morning Edition: January 7, 2005

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

Palestinians are voting on Sunday for a president of the Palestinian Authority. The winner will replace Yasser Arafat who died two months ago. Seven candidates are competing but only two have garnered more than a couple of percentage points in public opinion polls. Mahmoud Abbas, who has been endorsed by Arafat's Fatah movement, is the overwhelming favorite, and he's challenged by Mustafa Barghouti, a human rights activist who is supported by the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Hundreds of foreign observers will be monitoring the election. Among them, former President Jimmy Carter. He is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who brokered the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement, and he joins me now from Jerusalem.

President Carter, welcome.

Former President JIMMY CARTER: Renee, it's good to be with you and your listeners on NPR.

MONTAGNE: What is your impression of the set-up for the election? And do you see the voting going smoothly?

Mr. CARTER: Well, the set-up is, obviously, orchestrated by Israel and is very tightly controlled, but I think we're trying to make the best of a very uncomfortable situation. The Carter Center is working very closely with the National Democratic Institute, and we have 80 observers here that have been getting briefings for the last couple of days and they will be distributed all over the West Bank during the election process. We'll monitor about 220 voting places.

Some of the most serious problems that have arisen is that Israel has about 700 checkpoints, and sometimes they either deliberately or inadvertently hold up Palestinians that are trying to move from one community to another. There's always a very contentious issue concerning voting in East Jerusalem. There's been quite a bit of restraint on how many Palestinians could register, and that those who do vote can only do so in five or six different locations, all of them post offices. So the Israelis claim that the Palestinians are mailing their ballots from East Jerusalem outside to be counted, whereas the Palestinians insist that they're actually voting in East Jerusalem. But I think the Palestinians have an amazing degree of optimism right now about what will happen.

MONTAGNE: You know, there had been talk about violence, but looking at it from a couple of days in advance, are you concerned about that?

Mr. CARTER: No, I'm not concerned about violence. The United States government is very concerned. In fact, they have put down very severe restraints so that in our delegation, they don't want any Americans to go into Gaza which is one of the major voting places. But the Europeans and others understand we'll be monitoring the election in Gaza.

My belief is that the militant groups that have been precipitating the violence in the past see that this would be a very detrimental factor for their own status if they deliberately disrupt this election because of violence because this is something that the Palestinians very strongly desire.

MONTAGNE: Just very briefly, how significant is this election when it comes to the peace process?

Mr. CARTER: Well, we don't know yet but we've already had a few elections, as you may know, for municipal leadership that was contested by Hamas as well as Fatah. And this election, Hamas will not participate, but they will choose the president of the Palestinians. But then following that, we'll have an election in May or June for the other members of the Palestinian Authority which is their parliament. And then there will be a number of other municipal elections held as well.

So my belief is that if things do go well, this will lay the basis or the foundation for peace negotiations to be recommenced. So I think it's a very hopeful opportunity if it goes well. And, of course, the international observers are here to do our part in making sure that it does go well.

MONTAGNE: Former President Jimmy Carter, thanks very much.

Mr. CARTER: It's been a pleasure.

MONTAGNE: Speaking to us from Jerusalem where he's heading a monitoring commission for this Sunday's Palestinian presidential election.

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