JERUSALEM — Less than two weeks after declaring his candidacy, imprisoned uprising leader Marwan Barghouti has abandoned his bid to become Palestinian Authority president in the Jan. 9 election, his campaign manager said Sunday.
The move appears to clear the way for Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the official candidate of its dominant Fatah faction, to succeed the late Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president.
At a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Barghouti's campaign manager, Ahmed Ghneim, announced that Barghouti was throwing his support behind Abbas and withdrawing from the campaign to preserve Palestinian unity.
Ghneim read a three-page letter from Barghouti in which the former candidate lashed out at Palestinian leaders who had denounced his bid as a threat to the unity of Fatah.
Barghouti's letter advocated a revamping of the movement's leadership, which he said had grown "old, weak and alienated" from the rank and file.
Barghouti also called on Abbas, if elected, to hold fast to long-standing Palestinian claims, such as the "right of return" for refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948 war that followed Israel's founding, and to defend the rights of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
He urged efforts to stop the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to block the barrier Israel is building in and around the West Bank. Barghouti also called for measures to fight corruption in the Palestinian Authority.
Barghouti's withdrawal marks the apparent end of his on-again, off-again campaign. Barghouti formally joined the race when his wife, Fadwa, filed candidacy papers with Palestinian election officials hours before the Dec. 1 deadline to register. That move came after supporters first announced he would run, then said he would not.
In recent days, Barghouti's backers had hinted that he might drop out in return for concessions from Fatah leaders. Though none was offered explicitly, Abbas issued a campaign manifesto underlining his commitment to traditional Palestinian positions, including the creation of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital and the right of return for refugees.
Barghouti wrote that he entered the campaign to advance a message of resistance against Israel and call attention to the status of thousands of jailed Palestinians. He said he was sad to see his bid viewed as a challenge to the Fatah leadership.
