Jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghouti has decided to run in the Palestinian presidential election as an independent candidate to replace late Yasser Arafat,the local Ha'aretz daily reported Thursday.

"He has decided to run for president ... an official announcement will be made within 24 hours," the report said.Amin Maqboul, secretary general of the Fatah Higher Committee,said Barghouti had informed Fatah leaders through his lawyers that he would run.

However, there has been no official confirmation from Barghoutior his lawyers of this decision.

Barghouti's supporters said they were counting on international pressure on Israel to free him.

Barghouti, former head of Fatah in the West Bank, was agrassroot leader enjoying widest support in the Palestinian territories even he was in jail.

According to a poll conducted in September on Palestinianleaders' popularity among their people, Barghouti ranked first with 22 percent respondents supporting him, followed by Sha'b leader Haidar Abdul Shafi and Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar by 12 percent each.

Current chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization Mahmoud Abbas had a support rate of less than 5 percent.Earlier this week, the Fatah Central Committee named 69-year-old Abbas as the movement's only candidate to stand in the Jan. 9election, abandoning Barghouti who represents the younger generation of activists.

Both Barghouti and Abbas support the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.The two differ on the Intifada (Uprising). Abbas is against violence while Barghouti led two uprisings.

The uprising leader, who was arrested in 2002 for his role inanti-Israeli attacks, is serving five life terms in Israeli jail.During a two-year trial that ended earlier this year, heinsisted he was nothing more than a Fatah political leader.But Israeli judges convicted him of heading Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the faction's militia, and plotting the murder of at least four Israelis and a Greek monk.

Source: Xinhua