Fatah holds congress amid Abbas’ succession speculation
Ramallah, Occupied West Bank - After a two-year delay, Fatah movement's seventh congress is expected to open on Tuesday amid Internal wrangling over Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' succession.
Up to 1,400 invited members are expected to design the movement's strategy for the next five years. The congress will also elect Fatah's 23-member Central Committee, presided by Abbas, and its 132-member Revolutionary Council.
Abbas is said to be under pressure from Arab states to name a successor. Fatah officials, however, insist that the congress "is not about succession".
"The congress will discuss and review the tools that have been used to achieve two goals: establishing a free and sovereign state and the right of return which remain our national goals," said Husam Zomlot, Abbas' strategic adviser and newly appointed ambassador to the United States.
"A major review should be about bilateralism and successive Israeli governments' insistence to use negotiations as a tool to expand and reinforce the occupation and colonisation," Zomlot told Al Jazeera.
The congress, according to Zomlot, will also address strategic alternatives, including the issue of internationalisation of popular resistance, of boycott and sanctions as well as resorting to the International Criminal Court (ICC).