A kaleidoscope of campaign banners that is a who's who of Palestinian politics floats above traffic-choked el-Manara Square. Yasser Arafat smiles against the background of Jerusalem. Jailed militant leader Marwan Barghouti waves his shackled hands in defiance of Israel.

Nowhere is the portrait of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

With only days to go before the Jan. 25 vote for parliament, and his Fatah Party dangerously close to losing to the Islamic militants of Hamas, the Palestinian moderate has taken a low profile in an election that many see as a referendum on his tenure.

Aides say election laws forbid the president, not up for reelection, from campaigning, but observers suggest Mr. Abbas is a liability because he has disappointed many Palestinians.

"He represents an image that can be harmful to the campaign," says Basem Ezbidi, a political science professor at Ramallah's Birzeit University. "On a popular level, people do not see him really as someone whom they can trust to deliver because they've given him a full year to deliver and he didn't. There's an ironic thing: here the Palestinian public and the Israeli government meet."

Indeed, a Hamas victory could turn Abbas, who has said he'll only serve one term, into a lame duck unable to lead the Palestinians back into peace talks.

In another sign that pressure may be ratcheting up on Abbas, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated an explosive in south Tel Aviv Thursday afternoon, wounding 14. It was the first attack since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke in December and will test the response of acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's caretaker government.

Last January Abbas was coronated Yasser Arafat's successor with a 62 percent electoral mandate, buoying hopes for a resumption of peace talks with Israel and promising to rein in Palestinian gunmen. But he achieved neither.

Within the disintegrating political party bequeathed to him by Mr. Arafat, Abbas's authority is being questioned. Even one of his few achievements, an agreement among Palestinian militants to suspend attacks on Israelis, has proven rickety. Now, a poor showing for Fatah would be akin to a sitting US president losing control of the House or Senate during a midterm election.

"[Abbas] will be in bad shape if Fatah gets less than what is expected, or loses the majority," says Mohammed Yaghi, a columnist for the Al-Ayyam newspaper. "Hamas will haggle with him on everything."

The president backed next week's election in hopes that with Hamas as a part of the Palestinian parliament, he could exert more leverage over the Islamist militants. But the price of that strategy could weaken the president's party's grip on power. That has stirred dissension in the ranks of Fatah.

"Many are skeptical that he is really for Fatah,'' says Mr. Yaghi. "Many are saying that he doesn't care, that he only has a [diplomatic] program, and that is his main concern."

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