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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...3-024158-2278r

• Analysis: Palestinians ask U.S. for election help
  
  WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) -- Given the deadlock that Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations finds itself in, Palestinian authorities are turning to the United States for help in organizing "free elections" and reviving the Middle East peace process.
  
  Such a move, Palestinian officials hope, would convince the Bush administration that the Palestinian Authority is serious about returning to the negotiating table. Furthermore, they say, democratic elections would fall in line with President Bush's vision of expanding democracy in the troubled Middle East.
  
  Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told United Press International Thursday that the Palestinian Authority wants to hold "presidential, legislative and local elections as soon as possible."
  
  . . .
  
  Erakat is in Washington meeting with top U.S. officials hoping to elicit their support in restarting the stalled "road map" that was to see the peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005. Erakat met with William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, after Secretary of State Colin Powell was unexpectedly called away. Erakat also is to meet with Elliott Abrams, Bush's Middle East specialist at the White House as well as with a number of senators from both sides of the political aisle.
  
  But holding elections does not come without certain risk factors for the Palestinian administration and the United States. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Islamist militant movements in the Palestinian territories, are said by a number of analysts, including some Palestinians close to the leadership, to be in a position to win an important part of the vote should elections be held today. Many believe Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, would easily win in Gaza and grab about 25 percent of the West Bank.