There is a tone of righteous indignation in the ruling Fatah party that the movement that spearheaded the Palestinian national struggle for more than four decades should be facing the loss of its political monopoly in parliamentary elections this week.

Fatah’s opponents say it has only itself to blame.

“We are ready to admit our faults,” said Hassan Abu-Jarad, who is contesting a seat for Fatah in the Hamas stronghold of Gaza North. “But we ask why in the past other parties left Fatah to do everything alone.”

With the Islamists of Hamas running close behind Fatah in opinion polls ahead of tomorrow’s election, the movement founded by the late Yassir Arafat has little prospect of retaining a majority in a newly expanded 132-seat legislature.

Having dominated the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the 12 years of its existence, Fatah faces punishment at the ballot box for failing to fulfil its promise of Palestinian statehood and for presiding over a deterioration in the daily life of the 3.5m people of Gaza and the West Bank.

What is widely seen as the lacklustre leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, elected PA president a year ago, has also contributed to the malaise. In the absence of the firm hand of his predecessor, Arafat, the party has descended into bitter and sometimes violent factionalism that, even at this late stage, could sabotage the election.

Mr Abbas was obliged to referee a near-suicidal split in the party when frustrated leaders of its so-called “young guard” threatened last month to go it alone after the “old guard” Arafat generation manoeuvred to keep its placemen on the candidates’ list. An untidy compromise was reached, although the effect of the public dispute was to dent Fatah’s prospects further.

It has added to the negative impact of Fatah’s association with corruption and mismanagement and the public’s disillusionment with Fatah’s use of PA security forces and armed militias to fight its internal battles. Most of the lawlessness in Gaza and elsewhere, including kidnappings and extortion, stems from groups linked, however loosely, to the ruling party.

“The internal stresses in Fatah are mainly about the distribution of power and privileges,” said Qais Abdul-Karim, leader of the opposition leftwing Badil list. “Political differences are always marginal and are tolerated.”

Since Fatah was founded in the late 1950s as a movement through which Palestinians would secure their own liberation, rather than depend on unreliable Arab allies, it has been a coalition that embraced all currents of political opinion.

It consolidated its dominance as a result of the Oslo peace accords that created the PA, a process opposed by others, including Hamas, that are now contesting the election.

“They said Oslo was a failure but now everyone wants to rush into the legislative council that was a product of Oslo,” lamented Mr Abu-Jarad.

Despite the decline in its popularity, Fatah still has a better than even chance of being the largest party in the next legislature. Its list is headed by the popular Marwan Barghouti, a hero of the Palestinian intifada who is currently languishing in an Israeli jail.

It has succeeded in persuading a number of independents to pull out of the election rather than dilute Fatah’s support and, according to people close to the leadership, it has received a last-minute financial boost from the US administration, which has poured in several million dollars of anonymous aid money to fund vote-winning projects.

On polling day, however, there is no guarantee that even all its diehards will vote for it. “We will only vote for those candidates who support resistance,” said Mahmoud al-Madhoun, a commander of the Fatah-linked Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp.

That, he said, applied to only one of five Fatah candidates standing locally. He said he and his men were following the instructions of Farouk Kaddoumi, exiled chairman of Fatah and a rival of Mr Abbas.

Mr Madhoun, a survivor of an Israeli assassination attempt whose gunmen recently seized the local governor’s office to demand benefits for his men, was standing at the fringes of an election rally that reflected Fatah’s odd mixture of militancy and respectability.

On the podium were besuited former ministers, including Mohamed Dahlan, Fatah’s Gaza strongman. Guarding them were smartly uniformed masked militiamen from the Aqsa Brigades, listed by the US as a terrorist organisation. While in the crowd was a squad of poorly dressed gunmen, firing in the air and squabbling over who would climb up to the speakers’ platform to demand jobs and other favours.