High-level delegations from the Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA), and influential former top official Mohammed Dahlan’s Democratic Reform bloc have convened in the Egyptian city of Alamein for critical reconciliation talks ahead of Palestinian legislative elections.
The meeting on Monday, publicised by Democratic Reform, comes as Fatah’s rivals – including Dahlan’s group and Hamas – discuss forming a broad coalition that could pose a significant challenge to the party in November’s elections.
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Monday’s meetings were led by PA Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Fatah official, and Democratic Reform’s deputy leader Samir al-Mashharawi.
Although al-Mashharawi described the initial atmosphere in Alamein as positive, he added that nothing “practical” had yet been agreed and said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas needed to make “decisive decisions” in order to unite the Fatah movement. Democratic Reform is largely made up of ex-Fatah officials who have broken away over differences with Abbas.
“Everyone who was subjected to unjust decisions inside the Fatah movement must have their rights returned,” al-Mashharawi said. He defended Democratic Reform’s recent dialogue with other Palestinian factions, saying that “any alliances in the upcoming elections do not target the Fatah movement or its leadership”.
Hamas official Husam Badran told Al Jazeera last week that the Palestinian group had met recently with officials from Democratic Reform – as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – with the aim of forming a national bloc to contest the elections, the first since 2006.
The meeting with Dahlan was notable because Hamas and the Democratic Reform leader were opponents in Gaza for years, during Dahlan’s time as one of Fatah’s most powerful officials in the enclave. That culminated in the 2007 conflict between Hamas and Fatah, which led to Fatah being forced out of Gaza.
Coalition threat
The proposed anti-Fatah bloc has alarmed the movement’s leadership, and was the main driver behind Monday’s meeting, according to political analyst Ahmed al-Tanani.
“The main goal that the Fatah delegation came for is to neutralise the Dahlan participation in this alliance,” al-Tanani told Al Jazeera, adding that the prospect of a unified opposition “complicated Abbas’s calculations”.
Fatah’s attempt to prevent the coalition from forming highlights the dangers it presents. Any coalition would emphasise Fatah’s divisions, because Democratic Reform is a breakaway Fatah faction, and its members are still associated with the movement. It could also bring several disparate Palestinian factions together in a common challenge to the leadership of Abbas, who is now 90 years old and facing widespread opposition.
Gaza-based analyst Eyad al-Qarra said that a Dahlan-Hamas electoral coalition would allow Hamas to have more legitimacy to govern if it won, even after it announced that it was dissolving its administration in Gaza.
Dahlan would also be able to present himself in a positive light internationally.
“It is an attempt to present Dahlan and his faction to regional and international players as capable of achieving what Mahmoud Abbas could not – reaching serious understandings with Palestinian factions across the political spectrum,” al-Tanani said.
Succession battle
Given Abbas’s advanced age, there is also the question of Fatah’s succession planning, with Dahlan being presented among the possible names.
But al-Tanani said it was too early to suggest that Monday’s meeting could portend an improvement in Dahlan’s chances. He explained that absorbing Democratic Reform “would mean a widespread internal coup and a threat to the interests of the current leadership”.
Any reintegration of Dahlan would also spell bad news for other contenders for the PA leadership including Abbas’s son Yasser, who won a seat on Fatah’s Central Committee in May.
“If Dahlan comes in, Yasser’s chances will be bad,” al-Qarra said.
He added that current Fatah leaders were fearful of an alliance of dissenters within the movement, including Dahlan, the popular leader Marwan Barghouti – who is imprisoned by Israel – and Nasser al-Qudwa, a veteran politician.
Samih Khalaf, a Palestinian writer and a former member of Fatah, agreed that a return for Dahlan to Fatah would disrupt Yasser Abbas’s rise.
“The phenomenon of Dahlan poses a danger not only to an individual like the president, but also to the president’s preparations to pass down power to his son,” Khalaf said.
The problem for Yasser Abbas was that he would not be able to balance Dahlan’s influence if the latter returned to Fatah, Khalaf added.
Mahmoud Abbas has never publicly stated that he plans for Yasser Abbas to inherit the presidency.
Post-war governance
International pressure has played into Abbas’s decision to return to the ballot box, after he repeatedly delayed elections for years.
The push for elections forms part of a wider reform agenda backed by European and Arab governments, including an initiative produced by France and Saudi Arabia to work towards a two-state solution.
“The main motive for the Authority going toward elections is primarily linked to a European path, or at least a Franco-Saudi path aligned with the European Union, aimed at pushing reforms,” al-Tanani said.
For Dahlan, however, elections could offer something more: a route back into formal Palestinian politics.
Al-Tanani said that elections presented Dahlan an opportunity to convert his continued influence – despite living in the United Arab Emirates for years – into formal political representation.
Dahlan “saw in the Palestinian elections a golden opportunity to re-establish himself within the official Palestinian political system”, al-Tanani said.
Khalaf made a similar argument.
“Only the ballot box and the regional and international dimension may have the largest role in determining the shape of the political system and its future leadership,” he said.
That calculation also helps explain what analysts describe as Hamas’s increasingly pragmatic approach towards Dahlan.
“Hamas is being intelligent,” al-Qarra said. “It deals with everyone, including the Dahlan faction, especially since he has a role in negotiations, and his connections with Europe, the UAE, Egypt, and the United States, which cannot be ignored.”
But even with preparations underway for the elections, questions remain over both how much they will alter the existing balance of power, and whether they even will take place.
Al-Tanani stressed that Abbas continued to have leverage because of the power he holds.
“President Mahmoud Abbas in his electoral decrees and decisions has kept in his hands the authority of appointment for the [Palestinian] National Council membership, which means the ability to flip any majority that legislative elections might yield,” he observed in reference to the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), representing both Palestinians inside and outside the Palestinian territories.
That means that even if an opposition coalition is able to secure a majority, Abbas could potentially prevent them from holding power in the legislature and therefore in the PLO, which is the internationally-recognised representative of the Palestinian people.
And, al-Qarra pointed out, Abbas had another option – postponing the elections again, as he did in 2021.
“If he feels that this [opposition] alliance is a real threat that he will lose, he will cancel the elections or postpone them, and the pretexts and justifications are many,” he said.
