Fatah, the dominant political faction led by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, is facing internal hardship two months ahead of the Palestinian legislative elections due on Jan. 25, 2006.

The internal difficulty came when Fatah's first ever primaries were suspended on Monday in the Gaza Strip due to riots staged by discontented militants affiliated with the movement.

This may weaken Fatah in its upcoming competition with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the elections, said Ayoob Othman, a Palestinian professor of political science at al-Azhar University.

"Fatah has been founded since 1965, and it has experienced several internal hardships and crises ever since," Othman said.

In his opinion, the current internal crisis has been mounting in the last few years, even before late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat passed away in 2004.

The core of the internal crisis lies in the dispute between Fatah's young generation and its old guard over whether to hold elections and choose new leaders in its central committee and the revolutionary council, Othman indicated.

He said in Arafat's era, nobody from Fatah dared to raise the issue of reform and primaries as the late leader insisted that he would carry out reforms but later continued with his old policy.

Some other analysts believed that Fatah is still premature to usher in democratic elections, asserting that Arafat's hand- picking of candidates is more practical.

"The policy that late President Yasser Arafat had adopted to nominate Fatah candidates instead of going for primaries, as disputes and contradictions inside the faction still exist, seems to be better," said Darweesh Abu Safeya, a Palestinian university student in Gaza.

He said Monday's violation of primaries in Gaza shows that it is still too early to go for internal elections within Fatah.

"The leadership of the movement should first rearrange its internal situation, agree on the future steps and then go for elections," Safeya added.

The young generation in Fatah includes some prominent leaders, like Mohamed Dahlan, the civil affairs minister who said will resign for the legislative polls, and Marwan Barghouti, top Fatah leader in the West Bank but now jailed in an Israeli prison.

Unlike the old guard, they have a strong will to reform and hold elections to reshape the faction, analysts said.

Following the suspension of Fatah primaries, Abu Ali Shahin, a senior member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, demanded on Tuesday that Fatah's central committee members resign for they are considered as the old guard.

"The central committee is too lazy to do anything to make things better," Shahin said, speculating that after the suspension, Fatah might nominate candidates for the legislative elections.

However, Rafiq al-Husseini, director general of Abbas Bureau, told reporters that Abbas will accept the results of Fatah primaries.

Husseini said Abbas wants Fatah to practice democracy, ending the era of nomination.

(Xinhua News Agency December 1, 2005)