RAMALLAH, West Bank — Anyone who didn't know better might have thought that Yasser Arafat was alive and well and running for Palestinian Authority president.
Seven candidates, led by Mahmoud Abbas, kicked off a 15-day electoral campaign Saturday, with most if not all seeking to capitalize somehow on the memory of the Palestinian icon, who died Nov. 11 at age 75.
Arafat's image adorned campaign posters and newspaper advertisements; his name was freely invoked in speeches and campaign slogans.
One candidate seeking to succeed Arafat, Mustafa Barghouti, sought to literally assume the late leader's mantle, donning a checkered black-and-white kaffiyeh headdress like the one that was Arafat's trademark. He staged his opening campaign event a few steps from Arafat's grave.
All the candidates sounded similar themes: calls for Palestinian statehood and demands that Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers leave the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
"Israel must withdraw from all Palestinian lands it occupied in 1967," Abbas said in his inaugural campaign speech, referring to territories captured from Jordan and Egypt in the Middle East War. "The occupation must end."
The stylized nature of the speeches and campaign events underscored candidates' unwillingness to distance themselves from Arafat, who was revered by Palestinians as a symbol of their national struggle, even though many of them grumbled over his inability to govern effectively, clean up corruption or come to an agreement with the Israelis on statehood.
Abbas, now the interim leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, quit the post of Palestinian Authority prime minister in disgust when Arafat repeatedly quashed his efforts to rein in the fractious security forces and carry out other reforms. Abbas also differed openly with Arafat over tactics in the 4-year-old Palestinian uprising, saying that armed conflict and suicide bombings were a mistake.
None of that, though, prevented Abbas from pledging continued loyalty to the late leader. Using Arafat's nom de guerre, he said, "We tell Abu Ammar this: All you have said in the past, it is our duty to carry out."
Abbas also chose photos of himself with Arafat to feature in his first main round of campaign ads in Palestinian newspapers.
Israeli officials have not appeared bothered by Abbas' professions of fealty to Arafat, whom they virtually confined to his headquarters in Ramallah in his last years.
