Ramallah, West Bank (AP) – Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas On Saturday appointed a veteran assistant and a confidant as a new vice-president. This is a major step in the aging leader to designate a successor.
The appointment of Hussein al-Sheikh as vice-president of the Palestine Liberation Organization does not guarantee that he will be the next Palestinian president. But that makes him the first rank of long -standing politicians of the dominant party of the Fatah who hope to succeed Abbas 89 years old.
It is unlikely that this decision stimulates the image among many Palestinians from Fatah as a closed and corrupt movement out of contact with the general public.
Abbas hopes to play a major role in the post-war period Gaza. It was under pressure from Western and Arab allies to rehabilitate the Palestinian authority, which has limited autonomy in certain parts of the West Bank occupied by Israeli. He announced a series of reforms in recent months, and last week, his Fatah movement approved the new position of Vice-President of the PLO.
The OLP is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and oversees the Palestinian authority supported by the West. Abbas has led the two entities for two decades.
Under last week’s decision, the new vice-president, from the executive committee of 16 OLP members, will succeed Abbas as the goalkeeper if the president dies or becomes incapable.
It would make him the leading front to replace Abbas on a permanent basis, but does not guarantee it. The OLP Executive Committee should approve this appointment, and the organization is filled with veteran politicians who consider themselves worthy suitors.
The Palestinian authority, on the other hand, would have a separate goalkeeper chief, Rawhi Fattouh, the president of the Parliament of the Palestinians. But within 90 days, he should hold elections. If this is not possible, the new president of the PLO would probably take the job.
Al-Sheikh, 64, is a veteran politician who has held a series of leading positions during the decades, more recently as secretary general of the OLP Executive Committee in the past three years. He spent 11 years in Israeli prisons in his youth and is a veteran of the Palestinian security forces – experiences that could give him credibility to Palestinian security personalities and the wider audience.
Now he finds himself in a strong position to consolidate his power.
It is the nearest help of Abbas and, above all, has good working relations with Israel and the Arab allies of the Palestinians, including the rich Gulf countries. As an Abbas point man with Israel, Al-Sheikh is responsible for organizing coveted travel permits for the Palestinians, including VIP leaders, giving him an important lever for power over his rivals.
However, polls show that Al-Sheikh, like most Fatah leaders, is deeply unpopular with the general public. This week’s decision to be camera by the aging leadership of the PLO is likely to strengthen its image as being shy and disconnected.
In 2022 interview With the Associated Press, Al-Sheikh defended his unpopular coordination with Israel, claiming that there was no choice in the difficult circumstances of the occupation.
“I am not a representative of Israel in the Palestinian territories,” he said at the time. “We undertake coordination because it is the prelude to a political solution to end the occupation.”
The most popular Palestinian, Marwan Barghouti, is serving several sorrows for life in an Israeli prison, and Israel has excluded him in the context of any exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza by the militant group of Hamas.
While the War of Israel with Hamas takes place, with American President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to uproot the Palestinians to Gaza to move them elsewhere, Al-Sheikh will undergo increasing pressure to unite Palestinian leaders.
OLP is a rival for Hamas, which won the last national elections in 2006 and is not in the PLO. Hamas took control of Gaza from the Forces of Abbas in 2007, and attempts at reconciliation failed several times.
Abbas is always considered internationally as the leader of the Palestinians and a partner in all efforts to relaunch the peace process, which stops when Netanyahu returned in office in 2009. The political veteran who smokes the chain hung on to power since his expiration in 2009.
