MARWAN BARGHOUTI, the jailed firebrand Palestinian leader, has decided not to run for the presidency, aides announced last night, lifting the threat of a divided vote in his Fatah faction.

Qadoura Fares, a Palestinian minister who visited Mr Barghouti in jail in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva, relayed an emotional address by Mr Barghouti in which he explained why he had decided not to stand as an independent against Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah’s candidate.

Fatah’s revolutionary council had decided to hold internal elections for the first time in 15 years next August.

The promise was one of the sops designed to persuade Mr Barghouti not to stand and risk deepening the division between the “old guard” that surrounded the late Yassir Arafat, and the new generation who believe they have been frozen out of the Palestinian hierarchy.

In a four-hour meeting Mr Fares also carried a message from Mr Abbas, 69, the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, that Mr Barghouti would not be forgotten in prison and would be given a prominent role in Palestinian strategic decisions if he agreed to step aside. He suggested that now was not the time to rock the boat and there were hints of a deal that would see him and other prisoners released after the elections.

Mr Barghouti, sentenced in June to five life terms for the murder of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk, accepted Mr Abbas’s assurances. He urged Palestinian voters to get behind Mr Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to the anger of some of the Fatah young guard who had gathered to hear his decision in Ramallah.

Palestinian political analysts believed Mr Barghouti’s popularity could have carried him to victory if he had chosen to stand against Mr Abbas, favoured by Israel and the international community as a force for stability.

Jawad Boulous, a lawyer representing Mr Barghouti, said he had decided on Thursday to run. But the official announcement was delayed until the end of yesterday’s Fatah revolutionary council meeting, giving time for representations that appear to have prompted him into a rethink.

Opinion on the Palestinian street for his chances of success were divided. Even among some of his closest supporters there was a feeling that Fatah’s backing for Mr Abbas ensured him money, power and an electoral machine to guarantee victory.

However, some also felt that had Mr Barghouti chosen to run as an independent he could have drawn the support of militant groups like Hamas, which has yet to declare its intention for the January 9 elections. Mr Barghouti shares Mr Abbas’s wish to see the creation of a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In contrast, however, Mr Abbas forthrightly contends that the four-year intifada was a mistake that handed the advantage to Israel.

But Israel’s decision to allow Mr Fares and another ArabIsraeli legislator, Jamal Sahalka, to visit to visit Mr Barghouti in the cell where he has been held in solitary confinement for 26 months appeared to suggest the authorities were prepared to ease his conditions and may continue to do so in future.

Israel, meanwhile, agreed to remove all roadblocks in the West Bank on the day of the election, security officials said.

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