Ramallah

Mahmoud Abbas's home in Ramallah is a palatial villa spread on a hillside. Marwan Barghouti's is a second-floor flat in a six-story apartment block overhanging a gorge. It is not the only contrast between the two men, who until Barghouti's recent withdrawal from the race for the Palestinian presidential elections on January 9 were seen by Palestinians as the only real heirs to Yasir Arafat.

Ever since he was anointed official candidate by Arafat's Fatah movement, Abbas (a k a Abu Mazen) has been treated as president-elect. Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell and a string of other foreign dignitaries have visited him, eager to capitalize on the "new opportunity" afforded by Arafat's death and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from most of the occupied Gaza Strip and dismantle four small Jewish settlements in the northern West Bank.

Unlike his predecessor, Abbas has been allowed to travel, trying to thaw the frigid relations between the Palestinian Authority and Arab countries like Syria and Kuwait, still smarting from Arafat's decision to side with Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War.

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