(IHT) GAZA The boys from Hamas were busy ripping down the placards from a billboard to put up a message of their own, under the snapping green flags of Islam.

But their message was not about the presidential election Sunday – it was a billboard commemorating the death nine years ago this week of a Hamas hero named Yehya Ayyash, a bomb maker known as “the Engineer,” who died when answering his cellphone, which Israel had booby-trapped.

Hamas, the radical Islamic organization that provides significant charity to destitute Gazans as well as sponsoring a military wing that sends suicide bombers and rockets against Israelis, is urging a boycott of the election to replace Yasser Arafat as the president of the Palestinian Authority.

Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded Arafat as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and who is the candidate of the largest Palestinian faction, Fatah, is widely expected to win in a field of seven. The only real challenger to Abbas, 69 and known as Abu Mazen, is a medical doctor and aid worker named Mustafa Barghouti.

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But Abbas’s margin of victory – and the turnout – will be examined carefully to try to gauge the balance of power between the mainstream Fatah and the radical Hamas, which had made significant inroads here.

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The rise of Hamas paralleled the decline and corruption of the Palestinian Authority and pessimism about the peace process. Fatah is relying on Abbas to reverse the trend after the death of Arafat, now that there are new possibilities for dialogue and peace with the Israelis and a chance for reform of the dysfunctional Palestinian Authority.

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Hamas wants a weakened Abbas, both Palestinian and Israeli analysts agree. Hamas is hoping that even if Abbas wins with 60 percent of the vote, a low turnout will undercut his legitimacy – even a 70 percent figure would allow them to claim that 30 percent of voters heeded the call to stay at home.

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“No one can dare put up a poster of Barghouti or Abu Mazen here,” said a young Hamas man.

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“There was nothing and there will be nothing” – just the tribute to the Engineer, as a reminder to Gazans that Hamas is fighting the Israelis, while Abbas is calling for an end to violence as counterproductive to the goal of a negotiated, independent Palestinian state.

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Hamas – the Arab acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement, and itself meaning “zeal” or “bravery” – has ordered its members not to vote on Sunday, on the principle that the Palestinian Authority is an outgrowth of the 1993 Oslo accords with Israel, whose legitimacy as a state Hamas rejects.

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At the same time, Hamas participated last month in some local elections on the West Bank organized by the Palestinian Authority, where it did reasonably well in areas where Fatah was strong. And Hamas is concentrating on legislative elections – the first since 1996 and also a integral part of the Palestinian Authority – that may come as early as May.

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The contradictions in Hamas’s position do not stop there, said Taher al-Nounou, the Gazan correspondent for the Al Khaleej newspaper in the United Arab Emirates and who keeps close connections to Hamas.

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“Hamas is obligated to get into the political process,” Nounou said. “It has no other option, and its thinking is developing. It wants a share of power, and not to be a pure opposition.” With its top leaders assassinated by Israel last year, Hamas had no well-known candidate to run in the presidential election Sunday, even if it wanted to. And Arafat’s death has already produced an increase in Fatah’s popularity compared to Hamas, indicated by every reputable Palestinian opinion poll.

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“The scenario is the same as after Oslo in 1993, when optimism rose among Palestinians,” said Salah Abdel Shafi, an economist from a founding family of the PLO.

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“Then, Hamas shrank. But it waited, quite confident that at a certain stage things would get worse and explose, and this is what happened.” But the main difference now, Shafi said, is vital – “Hamas is now a military power in the Palestinian areas, and you can’t ignore them.” Still, he said, Hamas appears to be confused – surprised by the sudden death of Arafat, surprised that Fatah so quickly and smoothly settled on Abbas, surprised that Fatah appears to be stronger and more united now. “Hamas expected a leadership crisis and chaos after Arafat died,” Shafi said.

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Even the Hamas boycott call came a little late, when Hamas’s more atomized leaders realized that many of its supporters, who had registered to vote to participate in local elections, were likely to vote for Abbas in the name of Palestinian unity. Hamas has also escalated its criticism of Abbas only in the last 10 days, as it has also escalated its rocket and mortar campaign against Israel in direct rejection of Abbas’s call on them to stop.

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Abbas has decent relations with Hamas leaders going back many years, and he made a point of meeting with them here after Arafat died, to discuss their demands and desires for a share in power, and to ask them to keep the situation calm and the violence down at least during the campaign. But when Abbas visited Gaza this week, Hamas refused to meet with him and demanded that he retract his call for an end to rocket attacks against Israel and apologize.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/07/news/mideast.html