New generation leads Fatah

Around 05:30 a.m. on Tuesday I started receiving calls from Bethlehem with early results of Fatah's first leadership election in 20 years.
Early results of the the historic Fatah vote showed the group has discarded some 80 percent of its old leaders. It was a clear sign Fatah was determined to rejuvenate the group that lost power to Hamas in 2006.
It was a coup against the old guards who monopolised power for over 20 years and marginalized the local leaders of the West Bank and Gaza.
Hamas has done its best to derail Fatah's first conference in 20 years but the vote took place nevertheless.
Leaders who publicly defy Hamas' forceful control of Gaza such as Mohammad Dahlan, Tayyeb Abdel-Rahim, Tawfiq Tirawi and Hussein al-Sheikh, among others, won seats on Fatah's Central Committee, the group's highest decision-making body.
Fatah officials in Gaza said most if not all voters in Gaza voted for jailed leader Marwan Barghouthi who led the second Intifada, and a possible successor for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Well-known and influential figures from the older generation such as Ahmed Qurie had disappeared from the winners' list, early results showed.
For the first time since its inception in 1965, Yasser Arafat's Fatah is now led by the younger generation from the West Bank and Gaza. The older generation that led the movement in exile and during the past 15 years have now been forced to give way to the young, the bulk of the secular movement.