Mahmoud Abbas, candidate of the Fatah movement, proclaimed a sweeping victory in the Palestinian presidential election Sunday night, as a bumpy road toward peace is still ahead.

An exit poll shows that Abbas garnered a landslide 66 percent of votes as 65 percent of 1.8 million eligible voters in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem turned out for the ballots.

Although an official result will be declared Monday, Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, is poised to succeed late Yasser Arafat as chairman of the Palestinian National Authority, the first of its kind since 1996, when Arafat won the chairmanship.

Sweeping victory

"We offer this victory to the soul of brother Yasser Arafat," Abbas told a jubilant rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"We also dedicate it to all the martyrs and wounded and prisoners behind (Israeli) bars," said the 69-year-old veteran leader, one of main architects of the 1993 Oslo Accords which set in motion the Palestinian-Israeli peace track.

The sweeping win could give Abbas a high degree of legitimacy to fulfill his pledge to negotiate with Israel, curb armed attacks, salvage an ailing economy and inject impetus to the moribund Mideast peace process.

His victory also revived hope for tens of thousands of Palestinians, who have been fed up with the cycle of violence and desiring for a better life.

"Of course we voted for Abu Mazen, he is our leader who would make changes in our life and end our sufferings. This is what he promised us in his election campaign, this is why we voted for him," Abdel Kareem, one of 419,000 Gazan voters, told Xinhua.

Mohamed Salman, who has been jobless for nearly four years, said he voted for Abbas who could improve living conditions of Palestinians.

"He (Abbas) is a qualified person and has the ability to get us out of poverty," said the only bread-earner in a 13-member family.

"There are lots of Palestinians who have lost jobs due to Israeli closures and violence. There should be peace and reforms so as to get us out of this vicious cycle," Salman said.

Mustafa Sheihk Jamal Abu Arafa, a top Muslim cleric in Ramallah, told Xinhua that the voting was a "national and Islamic duty for every Palestinian, and it will lead to a real basis for a future Palestinian state."

"We hope the elected leader will end Israel's occupation," he said.

On the international arena, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana voiced hope on Sunday that a new peace opportunity would emerge after the historic election.

Speaking to reporters in the Jordanian capital Amman, Solana said a new Palestinian leadership could lead the people to the goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel peacefully.

He also reaffirmed the EU's resolve to support the elected leader and his prime minister.

Stressing the importance of the Palestinian election, US President George W. Bush said on Sunday that the election, together with the legislative election six months later, "are essential for the establishment of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic, and peaceful Palestinian state that can live alongside a safe and secure Israel."

He said the United States will help Abbas in terms of curbing militants and implementing reforms.

On the prospects of the Palestinian-Israeli peace track, Israeli President Moshe Katsav described the coming months as "the most fateful" in bilateral ties, and wished Abbas to usher in a new chapter in the history of the Middle East.

Bumpy road

Facing hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and internal disputes, Abbas needs to find a way out of the current deadlock.

"The new president will face two tasks. The first is to rearrange internal affairs and to improve the people's living conditions," Palestinian Minister of Labor Ghassan Khatib told reporters in Ramallah.

"The second is to carry out an initiative on the basis of the roadmap peace plan and urge the international community to force Israel to implement the roadmap by ending assassinations and attacks against the Palestinians," he said.

According to well-informed Palestinian sources, Abbas has rejected conditions for meeting with Sharon,

The sources said Abbas rejected the idea that the meeting would only focus on the security issue, adding Abbas will ask Sharon to implement the roadmap peace plan envisioning a full Palestinian statehood by 2005.

Sharon intends to push ahead with his disengagement plan, which analysts say will keep the Palestinian side at bay by withdrawing from the tiny Gaza Strip and constructing the so-called separation wall in the West Bank.

On the ground, Palestinian militants fired two homemade rockets from the Gaza Strip at the southern Israeli town of Sderot Sunday afternoon, despite Abbas' repeated call for an end to armed attacks against Israel.

Also, Israeli troops opened fire at a school turned polling station in the southern town of Khan Yunis when dozens of Palestinians were casting their ballots there.

On the home front, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) boycotted the race, but said it was eager to seek common ground with the mainstream Fatah movement.

"There are difficult missions waiting for us on how to build our state and how to bring dignity to our people and our militants," Abbas told his supporters.