"Three months ago, nobody liked Abu Mazen," says Ghazi Abu Hanna. "And now, suddenly, he's become our new hero." The 53-year-old pharmacist's analysis is pretty much on the mark: 69-year-old attorney and businessman Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, had a miserable popularity rating before Sunday's presidential election. But despite his lack of charisma and ability to galvanize the Palestinian electorate, he still managed to coax 62.3 percent of the Palestinian populace to vote for him. His trick? For decades, Abbas served as a close friend and trusted advisor to the wildly popular Yasser Arafat.

But Abbas shouldn't be mistaken as merely a less popular recasting of Arafat. Among Arafat's former leadership circles, it would be hard to find someone more different from the former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader. In Arafat, you had a guerrilla who ruled wearing an olive-green uniform, a revolver hanging from his belt and his trademark, black-and-white checkered Palestinian keffiyeh. Abbas, on the other hand, is a businessman. He sports a blue suit, snow-white hair and bulky sunglasses. Furthermore, he's a civilian and he opposes armed conflict, including the four-year-old so-called "Second Intifada" currently eating away at the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Though he was a co-founder of Arafat's Fatah movement and a member of the PLO, observers say he has never carried a weapon.

Even before his start in politics, Abbas was a long-time supporter of a peaceful resolution with Israel. Many agree that without his influence, the Oslo Accords -- which established a basis for the ongoing quest for peace between the Palestinians and Israel -- never would have happened. He was also the first prominent Palestinian to criticize the violence of the intifada. Indeed, Abbas has for years repeated exactly the kinds of words Israel, the international community and moderate Palestinians had hoped, in vain, to hear from Arafat. Indeed, such comments will make in difficult for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to continue to claim that there is no partner for negotiations on the Palestinian side -- and he has said he will work with Abbas. On the other side, Abbas said, during his election campaign, that he could see Sharon as a plausible partner for peace. Thus, Abbas's election could reflect a watershed moment in Palestinian history.

Political pitfalls

Still, Abbas faces a tough battle on many fronts, and those who want to obstruct his work will have little trouble doing so. Two years ago, Abbas got a preview of the kind of indignities both Palestinians and Israelis are capable of inflicting upon their opponents. After only 127 days in the office of Palestinian prime minister, Abbas threw in the towel, worn down by Arafat's refusal to yield any power and Sharon's introduction of one impossible demand after the next. Indeed Abbas never forgave Arafat for failing to give him the backing he needed and right up to Arafat's death in November, the two remained estranged.

Nevertheless, Abbas has considerable experience and credentials that may help to endear him with the Palestinian people. Born in 1935 in the city of Safad, which is now part of Israel, his family became refugees during the first Arab-Israeli war fought from 1948 to 1949. They sought refuge at a camp in Syria, and the country eventually became their home. Abbas worked to support his family and went to night school before moving on to university, where he studied to become a lawyer. While working in the gulf states some 40 years ago, he met Yasser Arafat and joined him in founding the Fatah movement dedicated to creating a Palestinian state.

Abbas would ascend to become a permanent fixture of the Palestinian liberation movement and one of its brightest thinkers. Yet despite his aversion to armed conflict or terrorism, Abbas is not without controversy. The doctoral thesis he wrote while studying politics in Moscow analyzed Zionism from a Palestinian perspective and argued that the estimate of Jews killed by the Nazis should be reduced. It's work like that which has made him easy fodder for the Israeli press, where it is often alleged that he has anti-Semitic tendencies.

But Abbas has redeeming aspects, too. As others in Arafat's PLO leadership cadre clamoured after international publicity, Abbas has generally been soft-spoken -- choosing to negotiate his deals discretely or even secretly; tellingly, the book he wrote about the Oslo negotiations was called "Through Secret Channels." The backdoor channels he has access to are said to be many and, indeed, one of his few successes as prime minister was getting both Hamas and the Islamic Jidhad to agree to a cease fire. One source close to Abbas says he still maintains those contacts and for that reason, the source believes, a new, lasting cease-fire may be on the table within weeks. If the Israeli government also agrees to a cease-fire against the radicals that is.

Abbas's political options

There are also significant reasons for skepticism about any such deal. Ariel Sharon is still insistent that the Palestinian Authority disarm the region's radicals -- by force if it has to. But Abbas has refused to order a crackdown and has instead called for the groups to voluntarily disarm. Even though he disagrees with their decision to use arms, he does consider their conflict to be a legitimate one.

In the event no progress is made on this front, Abbas has told his political confidants that he will instead focus on domestic reforms. The Palestinian Authority has become awash in corruption -- and the task of untangling the mess could fill an entire term on its own. Crooked functionaries need to be replaced, independent courts installed and the security services need to be merged. "Bye Bye, Arafat System," Abu Mazen's acquaintances are already saying. But critics have said that Abbas, a PLO and Fatah insider, is the wrong person to do this political clean-up work. And even if he succeeds in getting them off the gravy train of corruption, he may wind up with more enemies than friends. It's a risky job.

On the issue of the peace process with Israel, Abbas says he supports restarting peace talks, at least in principle. "I'm not pledging anything that hasn't already been granted in some international agreement or other," his official position states. On the question of the controversial right of return for Palestinian refugees, he cites UN Resolution 194 from 1949, which clearly calls for that right. And when it comes to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, he quotes United States President George W. Bush, who said, "The United States is on record supporting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a Palestinian state." The fact that he's even quoting anything underscores a major difference between Abbas and Arafat. The former PLO leader spent more time getting carried away with his statements that he wanted to die as a martyr for Jerusalem than he did contemplating the remarks of others. Indeed, most expect a more contemplative political style from Abbas, who is known for repeating each of his sentences.