Palestinian election officials announced Thursday that 10 candidates had qualified to compete in Jan. 9 elections to replace Yasser Arafat as president of Palestinian Authority.
The qualified candidates included Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO leader who is considered the front-runner, jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti and human rights activist Mustafa Barghouti.
Rami Hamdallah, chairman of the Palestinian election committee, declared the list of candidates. He said the official campaign will begin 14 days before the election and will end 24 hours before the vote.
Also Thursday, Abbas visited his campaign headquarters in Gaza and vowed to follow in Arafat's footsteps to achieve an independent state and criticized Hamas' call to its followers on Wednesday to boycott the vote. "Our people should participate and share in all the institutions and decisions regarding the future," he said, according to The AP. "We must have a strong capable authority to provide security and stability to our people and to bring our people out."
