https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/jihad-murderer-barghouti-running-palestinian-hugh-fitzgerald/
Mahmoud Abbas must be kicking himself. Why did he ever think it would be a good idea to call for parliamentary and presidential elections? He had, after all, gotten along quite well without them. The Palestinian President-for-Life is now entering the 16th year of his four-year term. But he wanted to show the Biden people that he was, in truth, deeply democratic, and what better way – indeed, the only way – to show that was to insist upon elections. Besides, he figured everything would go according to plan.
His handpicked list of Fatah candidates would win a majority in the Parliament. And he would not face any serious opposition in the Presidential race. Abbas would make sure, with carrots and sticks, that Hamas would not field a presidential candidate. The carrots were “jobs for the boys” – Hamas leaders’ relatives suddenly offered employment with the PA, or other financial inducements (including bribes); the sticks would be visits by Fatah enforcers to Hamas leaders, telling them not even to think of running; both worked, and Hamas announced it would not put up a candidate for the presidency. And Mahmoud Abbas figured that both of his most dangerous, because much more popular, rivals — Mohammed Dahlan and Marwan Barghouti — would for different reasons not be able to run.
Mohammed Dahlan, who for the past decade has lived in the United Arab Emirates, where he became a counsellor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and is now known as “the Emirates’ favorite Palestinian.” Dahlan once headed a small army of Fatah members in Gaza; at the time some called Gaza Dahlanistan, until Hamas came to power in 2007 and drove the Fatah men out.