RAMALLAH, West Bank — Under fire at home and abroad, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority moved on Tuesday to solidify his decade-long hold on power with a party conference that had already been purged of most of his opponents.

The carefully selected delegates wasted little time in formally re-electing Mr. Abbas as the leader of Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. “Everybody voted yes,” a spokesman for Fatah, Mahmoud Abu al-Hija, told reporters who had not been allowed into the conference hall for the decision.

The conference, Fatah’s first in seven years, comes as the Palestinians face economic troubles, violent clashes among competing clans and the continuing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Critics complain that Mr. Abbas’s leadership has grown insular and out of touch. He convened the conference to demonstrate his continued grip on the Palestinian Authority and to restock the Fatah party leadership with allies.

“It represents a renewal of legitimacy; there is no doubt about that,” Nasser al-Kidwa, a former Palestinian foreign minister, said in an interview. Mr. Kidwa is a nephew of Mr. Abbas’s predecessor, Yasir Arafat, who is still revered by many Palestinians. The vote at the conference, Mr. Kidwa said, “turns the page on some of our internal problems that have existed in recent times.”