Fool me once, shame on me....

Palestinians Set Elections for January 2003

JERICHO (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority under pressure from President Bush to dump Yasser Arafat as its leader, announced Wednesday that presidential elections will be held in mid-January.

Pretty words, but how do you trust them? Arafat dismisses chunks of his council in a move toward reorganization, but weren't those men elected? (Maybe not, I really don't know.) Arafat was "elected" in January, 1996. I see cites that say his "term of office" ended some three years ago, so how legit is the claim that he is the "democratically elected" leader of Palestine?

Then again, I haven't been able to find anything that outlines how elections are held within the PLO, or the Palestinian territories, etc. So, how was an election held, who organized it, etc.? In short, there's this claim that Arafat was elected, but what is the term of office? Was he elected for life? If so, why new elections....

Poor Yasser. Must be tough being a democratic elected dictator nowadays. Maybe he should take lessons from Fidel.