Mahmoud Abbas, the increasingly isolated Palestinian President, announced yesterday that he would not stand for re-election in polls due in January, dealing a further blow to the US-sponsored peace process.

The announcement, made as Mr Abbas’s political standing hit an all-time low, exposed Palestinian frustrations at the Obama Administration’s failure to halt Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

“I have told my brothers in the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee that I do not want to run in the upcoming presidential elections,” he said in a televised address last night.

The decision was prompted in part by remarks made last weekend by Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, who appeared to sanction Israel’s refusal to halt the Jewish settlement growth.

Mr Abbas, 74, the successor to Yassir Arafat, told a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation that he would not run, his aides said. The PLO said that it would still put him forward as a candidate. “President Abbas has said more than once that he does not want to be a candidate because of his feelings of great frustration about the American position on the peace process,” said Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official. “The Americans have abandoned their obligations.”

Mr Abbas, a moderate who turned his back on the disastrous Palestinian Intifada and favoured talks with Israel, has seen his credibility and popularity plummet in the five years since he took power after the death of Mr Arafat, a former guerrilla leader and founder of the PLO movement Fatah.

In 2006 Fatah, which had dominated the PLO and the Palestinian authority set up in the 1990s, suffered an election defeat by its Islamist rival Hamas. Many Palestinians were tired of the corruption and cronyism of the Palestinian Authority and turned in protest to the Islamists, who reject talks with Israel.

The international community refused to recognise Hamas’s authority, since the West regards the movement as a terrorist group. Hamas has a 15-year history of suicide bombings and rocket attacks on Israel and continues to reject Israel’s right to exist. Attempts were made to form a unity government but the friction between the two groups erupted into outright war in the summer of 2007, when Hamas fighters drove out Fatah forces from the Gaza Strip.

It was a crushing blow to Mr Abbas’s rule, which was then confined to the West Bank. Palestinian Authority leaders called the rift, which has smashed the Palestinians’ highly cherished national unity, the worst catastrophe since Israeli occupation in 1967. But it did allow Mr Abbas to restart peace talks with Israel, which had rejected any negotiations with a government that included Hamas.

Mr Abbas forged a personal bond with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, who in 2006 succeeded Ariel Sharon, Mr Arafat’s arch-foe. Despite Mr Olmert’s pledges, and Tony Blair’s efforts to jump-start the economy, the construction of Jewish settlements continued, further undermining Mr Abbas’s increasingly tenuous position.

Presidential hopefuls

Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), 70 One of the key negotiators of the now-defunct Oslo Peace Accords and a former Prime Minister under Yassir Arafat, taking over the post from Mahmoud Abbas in 2003. He held the post until 2006

Marwan Barghouti, 50 A charismatic street fighter whose popularity surged during the Second Intifada that started in 2000. Arrested two years later for running a terrorist group, he is still in an Israeli prison

Salam Fayyad, 57 A US-educated former World Bank economist and current Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. Mr Fayyad is a favourite of the West. He has led efforts to rebuild the Palestinian economy and is seen as an honest broker with no links to militancy. However, he has limited popular support

Mustafa Barghouti, 55 No relation to Marwan. Ran as an outsider against Mr Abbas in 2005 and won 20 per cent of the vote. A doctor, he is a critic of both the Palestinian Authority and Israel, but held a minor ministerial post in the national unity Government in 2007

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