The Palestinian leadership was in turmoil today after jailed leader Marwan Barghouti entered the presidential campaign, pitting himself against PLO chairman Mahmud Abbas and eight other candidates.
The West Bank Fatah leader filed his candidacy late yesterday for the 9 January contest to succeed the late Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat with barely three hours to go before the deadline.
Central elections commission Rami al-Hamadallah announced today that Abbas and Barghouti were among a total of ten nominees.
They include Hassan Khreisheh, the acting speaker of parliament, who has a reputation as a vigorous anti-corruption campaigner.
After lodging the nomination papers with the commission, Barghouti's wife Fadwa read a statement from her husband who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for anti-Israeli attacks.
'I have decided to enter this democratic battle to maintain the path of the intifada and the resistance and to defend it and protect it from being labelled as terrorism,' he said.
The decision, made just five days after Barghouti announced he would not run, astonished and angered the dominant Fatah faction which had already chosen the moderate former premier Abbas as its candidate.
