Hundreds of foreign monitors who are overseeing this Sunday's Palestinian presidential election are trying to square the circle to ensure an occupied people are free to elect their own leader. 

"The main problem we face to ensure that voting goes smoothly on January 9 is that the voters are able to move about freely," said former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard who is in charge of a team of 260 observers from the European Union.

Rocard's delegation is the largest of a number of missions, including an 80-strong team led by former US President Jimmy Carter, who are fanning out across the West Bank and Gaza Strip ahead of the ballot to choose a successor to the late Yasser Arafat.

While the only other Palestinian presidential election took place in relative tranquility back in 1996, the violence of the last four years and the imposition of Israeli roadblocks across much of the West Bank mean that voting is far from straightforward this time around.

The former French prime minister recognized the unique nature of trying to ensure what he called "democracy under foreign occupation."

Also yesterday, Presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas called Israel the "Zionist enemy."

Abbas spoke to thousands of supporters after seven Palestinians were killed by an Israeli tank shell earlier in the day in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

(China Daily January 5, 2005)