Hamas’ trouncing of Fatah in several key West Bank cities in the municipal elections this week has added insult to injury to the party that continues to steadily lose the battle to regain the legitimacy it once had in the eyes of the Palestinian people. Given the erratic tendencies of electoral politics in general, it would be foolish to make too many predictions about Fatah’s chances against Hamas in the legislative elections scheduled for January based on the results of the municipal elections. But is clear that the council of “wise men” who have run Fatah for decades as an opaque old-boys-club consisting primarily of cronies of Arafat (who established their loyalty to him during his days in Tunis, long before his triumphant return, post-Oslo, to Gaza) are now scrambling to find the means with which to heal the internal wounds that have been festering in the open for the last few months.

These wounds have been inflicted principally by the resentment harboured against these “wise men” by the so-called “young guard” of Fatah cadres, who were born and brought up in the Palestinian Territories under Israeli occupation; who claim to have been at the forefront of the popular resistance against Israeli occupation; who have more often than not spent years in Israeli prisons; and who maintain, most importantly, that they are more attuned to the needs of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza than are the old guard who, they charge, place their narrow self-interests above the interests of the people.

While it is as yet unclear what the people themselves think of all this, the results from two different sets of polling – the first from the Fatah primaries (in which Fatah members in most West Bank and Gaza areas – with the exception of Jerusalem, where quotas for women and Christian may have interfered with results – overwhelmingly chose members of the “young guard” over those of the “old” as their preferred representatives for national elections), the second from the municipal elections (in which, as noted above, Hamas trounced Fatah) – would indicate that the old guard has good reason to be scared, for the young guard has grown increasingly shrill and self-confident, and Hamas is ascendant.

The latest developments this week have added to troubles of the old guard: when the official Fatah list was rumoured, just before its release, to be populated with several members of the old guard (who were also, not surprisingly, were members of the Fatah Election Supervision Committee who determined the list), the young guard, buoyed by the results of the primaries, defiantly released an alternative “list” under the name of al-Mustqabal, with Marwan Bhargouthi, the charismatic and best-loved member of the young guard at the head of the list. In a last-ditch effort to save face and to preserve unity, Abu Mazen then contrived to also place Bhargouthi at the head of the official Fatah list (thereby deplacing Ahmed Quriea to number four), along with several other “young guard” names that had done well at the primaries, but this proved to be too little, too late to the young guarders who continue, at the time of writing, to insist on competing via the alternative list. The ramifications of this defiance on their part remain unclear: while the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, in an admirable show of independence from the control of the usually-omnipotent Palestinian executive, has remained firm about the illegality of two alternative lists containing the same name, it is not yet clear if two Fatah lists – one official, the other nominally independent – will be allowed to contest the elections so long as they are not headed by the same person and so long as they are not officially representative of the same party. The Central Elections Committee remains tight-lipped on the matter, and will say only that all parties and candidates have till January 2nd to finalise the lists.

Everyone’s attention is now focused on Marwan Bhargouthi: if he decides to remain at the head of the Fatah official list and withdraw from the alternative al-Mustaqbal list, the chances for victory of those on the alternative list will be slim (especially as its members are a motley lot who have little political cohesion, and especially as it comprises several prominent but unpopular figures such as Mahmoud Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub). If Bhargouthi remains at the head of the alternative list, however, and withdraws from the official list, the chances for victory of those on the official list are even slimmer, as it is populated by the likes of such widely unpopular old-guarders as Ahmed Qureia (the erstwhile Prime Minister), Nabil Shaath (the deputy Prime Minister) and Rawhi Fatouh (the current speaker of the PLC). No matter what Bhargouthi does, then, it is clear that his is the ship that everyone will scramble to join in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Hamas’ approach to the legislative elections has been a model of party discipline and coherence. Hamas higher-uppers have chosen to field a list comprising well-respected, educated, moderate candidates, many of whom have a reputation for probity and high-minded public service. While Hamas has clearly profited from the unfair advantages enjoyed by all untried-by-government opposition parties, it is nonetheless to be commended for running a strong, on-message campaign which focused on themes of good governance and anti-corruption (and which studiously avoided overt religious rhetoric), and all this despite the stepped-up arrests of Hamas cadres orchestrated by Israeli forces throughout the campaigning period. That Hamas managed to sweep municipal elections, despite all odds, in al Bireh, Nablus and Jenin, is even less astonishing than the fact that it did so well (winning 3 seats compared to Fatah's 6) in Ramallah, despite the city’s old and politically active Christian community (some political analysts have suggested that Fatah might well even have lost Ramallah, or fared less well, had it not been for the Christian quota accorded to the Ramallah municipality).

The next few weeks will doubtless see much frantic politicking on the part of Fatah old and young guarders alike. Bhargouthi’s enigmatic pronouncements from prison about a fabled “no matter what, Fatah unity” notwithstanding, the future does not bode well for the party that once defined, and personified, Palestinian political activism. As the usual bewildering conspiracy theories continue to proliferate on the Palestinian street – the latest go so far as to suggest that the alternative ‘al Mustqabal’ list was the preferred method of Abu Mazen himself, who can find no other means through which to ensure the permanent retirement from political life of the tenacious old guarders – the competition for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people seems to be tipping in favour of the party that continues to officially remain opposed to peace with Israel. If the bellicose statements emanating from Israeli politicians and the US Congress about the impossibility of allowing Hamas to contest elections in January continue, the battle for legitimacy between Hamas and Fatah might conclusively be decided in the favour of the latter.