Yasser Arafat is likely to try to use a call by US President George W. Bush for new Palestinian leadership to his advantage — by quickly calling an election that analysts say he would win.

In a speech charting a course for a road map to Middle East peace on Monday, Bush told Palestinians they must elect a new leadership "not compromised by terror" to win an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born."

The remarks were essentially shorthand for an end to Arafat's rule. But they suggest the irony of what could be in store when Palestinians go to the polls — the re-election of the Palestinian leader Bush has effectively written off.

"I think Arafat's next step will be to call for elections. If Mr. Bush is asking for a change of leadership, then the way to do so is by a democratic way," said Palestinian political analyst Ali Jerbawi.

"When calls for changing the leadership come from the outside, they (the Palestinians) do exactly the opposite because they look like a dictate from the outside world. I think in the coming few days we will see Arafat calling for early elections."

Arafat was confident, denying that the remarks were against him. Asked for a response to Bush's call for a new leadership, he told reporters: "This is what my people will decide. They are the only ones who can determine this."

A recent poll by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre said 48 percent of the 1,179 people surveyed expected Arafat to win. Some 41 percent gave him favourable marks while 29 percent said he was a bad leader.

Palestinian Authority (PA) officials say only elections, and not the outside world, can dictate who leads their people.

"We already have declared elections and we trust that only an election will produce an independent government, and no government can be imposed by Mr. Sharon or Mr. Bush," Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath told Israeli television, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"Arafat is the choice of the Palestinian people and when he runs again next January for election that will be the time to see if the Palestinian people still give him a mandate or not."

For more than 30 years at the helm of the Palestinian cause, Arafat has made it his dream of becoming the first president of a Palestinian state and is not likely to give that up.