Arafat: Elections in the Palestinian Authority in a year

Yasser Arafat is responding the world pressure headed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to implement reforms in the Palestinian Authority.

Arafat said his words a short time after the reforms committee published it's plan to make a new government within 45 days. In addition, the committee requires to merge the defense organs from the current eight, to three. These ideas go hand to hand with the ideas Sharon wanted to implement, saying the current conditions in the PA motivate the leaders to take advantage of the people.

The requests made by the committee have won a large following, and this leaves Arafat with little choice but to accept them, especially because of the American and European demand that he does.

In the meantime, members of Fatah are strongly pushing for an election for the position of Prime Minister. This position will not hurt Arafat directly, but will make the authority have someone accountable for the PA's military arms. Members of Fatah are afraid that Israel will cause this idea to fail, because it could take some heat off of Arafat's back.

Gil Eyal