Can He Stop the Killing?

By Matt Rees

When Jalal Sharaf casts his vote for a new Palestinian President this Sunday, he won't pay much attention to the candidates' positions on Israel or the future of the peace process. Sharaf, 41, has worked only six months since the beginning of the intifadeh in September 2000. He lives with his wife and eight children in a shack on Block 4 of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza. They subsist on $7 a day scrounged from relatives. Desperate though it sounds, the family's predicament is hardly rare in Gaza's slums--and it is why Sharaf plans to vote for Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the leading candidate to succeed Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian Authority. "Abbas wants to get workers back to their jobs," says Sharaf. "I don't care about politics with Israel. I need to make a living, because all I'm doing now, by God, is swatting flies."

For Palestinians like Sharaf, the election on Jan. 9 may represent the best chance in years to chart a new direction, away from Arafat's legacy of conflict and misrule and toward a more prosperous, peaceful future. Abbas, 69, popularly known as Abu Mazen, has pledged to curb violence and exact agreements from Israel to ease conditions in the occupied territories. That position has earned him the backing of the U.S. and the support of a majority of likely voters, for whom the election is as much about putting food on the table as it is about ideology. Polls show Abbas winning 51% of the vote in a seven-man race. "The central issue in this campaign is to see who can make a difference for security and the economy," says Hisham Awartani, an economist at An-Najah University in Nablus. "Let's face it, only Abu Mazen has any answers."

But getting elected may be the easy part. As President, Abbas will have to begin dismantling the pillars of Arafat's regime if he hopes to persuade Israel to return to the negotiating table. His first task is to disarm the gunmen of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Arafat-backed group that has ruled over Palestinian towns like gangsters. Senior Martyrs Brigades officials tell TIME that Abbas has offered to buy back their weapons to avoid a confrontation. But the militants have shown little sign of moderation. "We were the warlords under Arafat," says a Brigades leader in Ramallah, "and we will be the warlords after Arafat."

Even as Abbas tries to stamp out militants within his party, he will face potential challenges to his authority from the Islamists of Hamas. Leaders of Hamas tell TIME that in meetings in Damascus and Gaza, they agreed to grant Abbas a period of quiet during the election campaign. Abbas hopes that by bringing Hamas into the political system, he will be able to persuade the group to accept a long-term cease-fire with Israel.

Establishing his legitimacy will require Abbas to reverse the culture of waste and corruption that ruined the Palestinian economy under Arafat. According to the World Bank, the average Palestinian's income is 36% lower than it was before the intifadeh began. Almost 50% live in poverty, which means a daily income of less than $2 a person.

Many Palestinians say they will judge Abbas less on his policies toward Israel than on whether he can restore hope to citizens such as Saadi Abed Rabbo, 44, whose home overlooks the Jabalya refugee camp. He used to earn $45 a day on Israeli construction sites, but he has not worked since the intifadeh started. His family can afford meat only once a month. "I hope the new President will get me a job," says Abed Rabbo. "That's all." Making peace won't be the only task waiting for Abbas to fulfill. --With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Ramallah

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Ramallah