According to the information I have gleaned from ABC News, Yasir Arafat was democratically elected. So there has been at least one free election for the Palestinians, post-Oslo. Now, I understand that right now might not be the most propitious moment for another election, but when there is another one, do you think Hanan Ashrawi could run against him and win? For the past decade Ashrawi has been an articulate spokesperson for the Palestinian cause in the Western media, and she is herself an elected member of the Palestinian National Council. It’s true she’s a woman, but a woman was elected prime minister of Pakistan, a very strict Muslim country. So, could she beat him? What do you think?
According to what I read, Arafat was democratically elected once. However, when his term was up, he canceled the next election election.
In 1994 he was chosen (many websites use the word “elected”) president of the Palestinian National Authority, with either 83% or 88% of the vote, depending on which website you look at (I suspect a typo on somebody’s part).
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/arafat.html
There was another, real election for President in January 1996.
http://www.planet.edu/~cec/timetab.htm
He ran against “a well-known Palestinian woman, a national figure and head of an NGO, Mrs. Samiha Khalil”. Guess who won.
http://www.palestine-un.org/pna/intro.html
http://www.palestinehistory.com/time1996.htm
Not surprisingly, there were questions raised about the validity of this election.
Annnndd…I can’t find anything on other elections since then. CNN.com just says he was elected president in 1996, and that’s it.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/04/05/palestinian.explainer/index.html
Not surprisingly, www.pna.net (the official website of the PNA) gives me a “Cannot Find Server”.
Ashrawi is, from what I’ve read, a marginal figure in Palestinian politics. The reason she is the spokeswoman for the Western media is because she is a member of a moderate fringe.
More popular figures include the more extremist Dahlan (in Gaza) and Rajoub and Barghouti (in the West Bank).
To answer the direct question, snowball’s chance in hell before the latest ugliness began. Now, a war-mood has settled. No chance.
However, I do wish to note that while Ashrawi is not a big political figure per se, she does have a large public presence. TV and the like. The woman is really quite amazing in debating in Arabic and knows how to put the Islamists in their place. So, she’s not just a figure head / talking head for the English/Western press.
(not that anyone said that, I just wanted to qualify as the impression might be gained w/o context)