Winning 88 percent of the vote, Yasser Arafat emerged Sunday from the first Palestinian election with a resounding mandate to complete peace with Israel and lead his people to independence.
Final results of the race for presidency released by the Central Election Commission late Sunday gave Arafat 88.1 percent of the total vote and his opponent Samiha Khalil 9.3 percent. Officials said that 2.6 percent of the ballot slips were invalid.Arafat loyalists will also control the newly elected 88-member Palestinian parliament, though he may have to share some power with uprising activists, outspoken women and other independents who until now were shut out of decisionmaking.
At least 50 of the legislators were members of Arafat's Fatah faction, including 10 who had served in his appointed interim Cabinet, according to unofficial results released Sunday night. Official results were expected Monday.
Despite the historic event, the mood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was subdued Sunday as Palestinians began to observe the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with dawn-to-dusk fasting.
Winners postponed celebrations until after the "iftar," the festive meal that breaks the fast after sundown.
Arafat will convene the legislature for the first time after Ramadan ends, said spokesman Nabil Abu Irdeineh. That date was not yet set.
Arafat joked Sunday about his landslide victory, suggesting a lower rate of approval would probably have looked more democratic. "I was looking for 51 percent," Arafat said after meeting with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who led a 40-member election observer team.
The voting was marred by reports of fraud, violations that ranged from stuffing ballot boxes to voting more than once to illiterate voters having their ballots filled out for them by Arafat loyalists.
In the West Bank village of Salem, an election official was shot and killed Saturday night by a Palestinian security agent who became enraged when told to leave a polling station. The gunman was arrested by Palestinian police.
In Hebron, also on the West Bank, one candidate said he was told that some 30 ballot boxes had disappeared and that were discrepancies in counting.
Carter said Sunday there were some problems in the voting, but not on a scale that would have altered the outcome.
"I look upon yesterday as one of the historic turning points in the history of Palestine and the Middle East," said Carter, who brokered the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty, the 1979 accord with Egypt.
Arafat said the elections took the Palestinians one step closer to independence. "This is the most important moment for the future of the Palestinian people, and we hope that very soon, we will have our independent state," he said.
Crucial decisions await Arafat and his legislature in the coming months. Negotiations with Israel on the final status of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem are to begin by May.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres congratulated Arafat on his victory, but also reminded him in a phone call of his promise to revoke sections of the PLO Charter that call for the destruction of Israel.
Under the Israel-PLO agreement, the charter must be annulled within two months after the first meeting of the Palestinian Council.
Peres announced he would permit the return from exile of all 483 members of the Palestine National Council, the Palestinians' parliament-in-exile which has to revoke the charter.
The members of the newly elected Palestinian legislature automatically become members of the Palestine National Council. In all, a two-thirds majority is required to revoke the charter.
Peres said the strong voter turnout was an endorsement of peace and sent a message to the Muslim militant opposition to stop their violence. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups have carried out a series of suicide attacks over the past two years in hopes of wrecking peace.
Militants had called for an election boycott, but Carl Lidbom, head of a 650-man international observer team, said some 75 percent of the 1 million Palestinians eligible to vote had done so.
The elections cemented the 65-year-old Arafat's transformation from guerrilla chief to leader of a state-in-the-making. It was aimed at creating a new cadre of elected Palestinian leaders with a stake in peace.
The new Palestinian legislators included Hanan Ashrawi, a former Arafat spokeswoman; chief Palestinian peace negotiator Ahmed Qureia; Saeb Erakat, who organized the elections; and Emad Falouji, who broke away from Hamas to run as an independent.
Palestinian analysts said five of the 22 women candidates running were elected and those who came with Arafat from exile in 1994 also made a strong showing.
Young street activists who led the uprising against Israel did less well, said Khalil Shekaki, whose West Bank think tank conducted exit polls.