Palestinian Fatah wraps up congress with new leadership

RAMALLAH, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Thursday his secular Fatah party wrapped up its sixth Fatah congress after electing new leadership for its executive and legislative bodies for the first time in 20 years.

The Fatah convention initially planned for three days kicked off in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Aug. 4, with more than 2,000 Fatah members at present. It was the first in the past two decades and also the first to be held on the Palestinian soil.

"The sixth general conference has achieved a great success," Abbas told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Abbas has been overwhelmingly re-elected to lead Fatah at the party conference as no other Fatah candidate challenged his five-year rule of the party which was established in the 1950s.

Abbas succeeded late Fatah founding father Yasser Arafat who headed the movement for 40 years until his death in November 2004.

Fatah also elected new leadership for its Central Committee, the executive body, and Revolutionary Council, the parliament.

The congress voted for 19 members of the new central committee. Young generation of Fatah reformists won 14 seats, while the other five are from the old guard trend.

Abbas, in his capacity as the Fatah leader, maintained his seat in the central committee. The newly elected members of the committee have the right to add three more members to fill the 23-member body.