PALESTINE - May 15 - Under Pressure Arafat Calls For Elections.

In a speech to the PA Legislative Council in Ramallah, Arafat says: "This is the right time for change and reform, despite all the attempts to undermine our efforts". He promises changes to his administration and new elections. (He speaks a day after PM Sharon demanded Palestinian reform as a condition for negotiations. But Arafat appears to be responding more to US pressure and to a rising clamour among Palestinians for change, a long-simmering issue that is suddenly boiling over). The shift in Palestinian politics, which is seen as no threat to Arafat's hold on power, was reflected in the pleased but sceptical reception legislators gave his speech. Applause for his call for elections turned to gentle laughter when he suggested there was no hurry, adding: "We should be responsible - we should implement what he can". After the speech, Ahmad Deek, a longtime member of Arafat's Fatah movement, said: "This is great". But, he added: "We don't want programmes. We want practical steps". Nabil Amr, who resigned last week as Arafat's minister of parliamentary affairs, citing a lack of reform, said: "We must see what he will do on the ground. We need a new government". Abdul Jawad Saleh, a leader of the legislative opposition, waved a copy of a speech he said that Arafat gave more than a year ago, in March.

"It's the same", he said, "only now it's more detailed. Nothing he said last year he has implemented. He's not serious. He's serious when there is pressure against him". Saleh called for demonstrations and civil disobedience by Palestinians to express what he called their desire for "real and substantive reforms and freedoms", noting a lack, for example, of freedom of the press. But he warned that Israeli and US demands "make it harder" for advocates of reform, by making them appear to serve foreign interests. (Some Palestinian politicians, including members of Fatah, have called for years for civic reform. Hussam Khader, a Palestinian legislator from Nablus, has long derided Arafat's intimates as "the Oslo Economic Party", a reference to corruption he believes was fostered by the Oslo peace process. Analysts say the sudden interest in reform at the top of the PA may be less a reflection of desire for change than of hope that such change, if inevitable, can be shaped to benefit the current leadership. Nader Said, a sociologist at Bir Zeit University, said that some potential beneficiaries were "the people who are behind the corruption. So how can we trust them again to lead the society on a democratic basis?"

Some of the men sparking cries for reform may be among those who gain from it. Many Palestinians are angry with Arafat Financial Adviser Mohammad Rashid, who is linked to Mohammad Dahlan, the chief of PA security in the Gaza Strip, who has recently extended his influence to the West Bank as he has emerged as a favourite of Arafat. Dahlan has been chafing at the lack of promotion within the PA, as aging ministers cling to their portfolios. Another ally of these men, PA Minister Hanan Asfour, was badly beaten outside his home in Ramallah by five masked men on May 12, in a sign of the intensity of the jockeying for power. Arafat has been sharply criticised by many Palestinians for permitting 13 Palestinians accused by Israel of terrorism to be sent into exile to resolve the 39-day standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Rashid was involved in striking that deal). Referring to such criticism, Arafat said: "I am telling you, if there is a mistake, I am responsible". But, he added: "There is no movement without mistakes in the whole world". Israeli Pres. Moshe Katsav said after Arafat's speech: "Leaders are allowed to make mistakes - it's only human. But the problem with Arafat is that he consciously and deliberately makes these mistakes". In his speech, Arafat also dwelled on the destruction left behind by the Israeli Army's recent sweep through the West Bank. But he suggested that his own administration sometimes might not have helped matters. "We cannot hide from public opinion", he said. "We cannot make people suffer more. It is enough that they are suffering from occupation". He called on the legislators to make "a review that touches all our aspects of life".