Palestinians elect Arafat successor

Mahmoud Abbas, a Palestinian moderate aiming to talk peace with Israel, was headed for a landslide victory in an election for a successor to Yasser Arafat yesterday, exit polls showed.

Waving flags and honking car horns, Abbas supporters celebrated a victory as decisive as any had predicted, and which looked to give the former Arafat deputy a solid mandate amid renewed hopes for peacemaking after Mr Arafat's death.

But Mr Abbas's bid to usher in a new era of diplomacy will be vulnerable to militants who boycotted the vote and fired rockets into Israel during polling in a show of force against his calls for a ceasefire.

Exit polls released after the 1900 GMT close of voting showed Mr Abbas, candidate of the dominant Fatah movement with over 65 per cent compared with about 20 per cent for his nearest challenger, pro-democracy activist Mustafa Barghouthi.

"This means that Abu Mazen has the mandate to implement his programme," said campaign manager Mohammed Shtayeh, using Mr Abbas's nickname.

Five other presidential candidates, ranging from a Marxist ex-guerilla to an academic under US house arrest on suspicion of funneling funds to Hamas militants, trailed far behind.

An independent estimate that turnout was a healthy 65 per cent also appeared to quell concerns that low participation as a result of a boycott call by Islamist militants could dent Mr Abbas's mandate for talking peace.

Palestinian election officials decided in mid-afternoon to extend polling in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem by two hours to 9 p.m. because, they said, some voters were being held up by Israeli army checkpoints.

Monitors said turnout was depressed by strict Israeli limits on polling stations in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it along with the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war but which Palestinians want for their capital. But they said Israel appeared to have largely kept its promise to ease the passage of Palestinians through checkpoints.

"It has been a very good day. The moment is historic," European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said while observing voting.

Israel has sized up Mr Abbas as a man to do business with but criticised his intention to co-opt rather than confront militants. It has also reasserted that progress towards peace depended on a halt to "terrorism and violence".

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is expected to meet Mr Abbas within days of his victory being made official.

After decades as a backroom technocrat in Mr Arafat's circle, Mr Abbas waged a populist campaign pledging to uphold his old guerilla boss's quest for total Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands but parted from him in urging an end to violence.

Mr Abbas caused disquiet in Israel with campaign vows to insist on Palestinian statehood in all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, as well as a "right of return" for millions of Palestinian refugees to lands now inside the Jewish state.

Israel plans to withdraw 8,000 Jewish settlers from tiny Gaza this year. But it rules out ceding East Jerusalem or taking back refugees and has won US assurances that it should never have to give up much larger settlements in the West Bank.