Fatah reject’s Dahlan party’s proposal to run on one list

The Fatah movement has turned down a proposal made by the Democratic Reform Current, led by dismissed Fatah leader Mohammad Dahlan, to run on a joint list in the upcoming elections, the New Khaleej reported yesterday.

One day after the issuance of the election decree, Sufyan Abu-Zaydeh, a senior leader in the Democratic Reform Current, posted on Facebook that the party had planned to run on a united list with Fatah. He added that Fatah had rejected the proposal, so the party will now run alone.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Secretary of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, Majed Al-Fityani, stressed that the Democratic Reform Current does not have any links to Fatah. “Its members,” he explained, “are the reason for all the internal crises inside the movement.”

The official added that everyone is able to run in the elections as long as they comply with the laws.

READ: Abbas rival Dahlan ‘sends money to West Bank and Gaza ahead of elections’ 

Fifty-seven-year-old Dahlan was expelled from Fatah’s ruling body in 2011 on allegations of plotting to overthrow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and has been living in exile in the UAE since 2012.

He was the former head of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Force in the Gaza Strip.

In December 2019, Turkey added Dahlan to its most wanted terrorist list, with a $1.7 million bounty on his head, due to his alleged involvement in perpetrating the attempted military coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government on 15 July 2016, in cooperation with followers of the exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who remains in the US.

READ: Dahlan prepares to return to Palestine to compete for presidency