Palestinian president names Hussein al-Sheikh vice-president of PLO and his most likely successor

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday named a veteran aide and confidant as his new vice-president. It’s a big step through the aging chief to designate a successor.

The appointment of Hussein al-Sheikh as vice-president of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) does now not ensure he would be the subsequent Palestinian president. But it makes him the frontrunner amongst longtime politicians within the dominant Fatah birthday celebration who hope to be successful the 89-year-old Abbas.

The transfer is not likely to spice up the picture amongst many Palestinians of Fatah as a closed and corrupt motion out of contact with most of the people.

Abbas hopes to play a big function in postwar Gaza. He has been beneath power from western and Arab allies to rehabilitate the Palestinian Authority, which has restricted autonomy in portions of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He has introduced a sequence of reforms in fresh months, and closing week his Fatah motion authorized the brand new place of PLO vice-president.

The PLO is the the world over recognised consultant of the Palestinian other folks and oversees the western-backed Palestinian Authority. Abbas has led each entities for 20 years.

Under closing week’s resolution, the brand new vice-president, coming from the PLO’s 16-member govt committee, would be successful Abbas in a caretaker capability if the president dies or turns into incapacitated.

That would make him the frontrunner to switch Abbas on an enduring foundation, regardless that it’s not a ensure. The PLO’s govt committee would want to approve that appointment, and the frame is full of veteran politicians who see themselves as worthy contenders.

The Palestinian Authority, in the meantime, would have a separate caretaker chief, Rawhi Fattouh, the speaker of the Palestinians’ non-functioning parliament. But inside of 90 days, it must hang elections. If that’s not conceivable, the brand new PLO president would most likely take over the placement.

Al-Sheikh, 64, is a veteran flesh presser who has held a sequence of best positions over a long time, maximum just lately because the secretary common of the PLO’s govt committee for the previous 3 years. He spent 11 years in Israeli prisons in his formative years and is a veteran of the Palestinian safety forces – reviews that might give him credibility with Palestinian safety figures and the wider public.

Now he unearths himself in a powerful place to shore up his energy.

He is Abbas’s closest aide and, maximum severely, maintains just right operating members of the family with Israel and the Palestinians’ Arab allies, together with rich Gulf nations. As Abbas’s level guy with Israel, al-Sheikh is answerable for arranging coveted trip lets in for Palestinians, together with VIP leaders, giving him the most important lever of energy over his competitors.

However, polls display al-Sheikh, like maximum of Fatah’s management, to be deeply unpopular with most of the people. This week’s resolution at the back of closed doorways through the PLO’s aging management is more likely to toughen its symbol as being stodgy and out of contact.

The hottest Palestinian, Marwan Barghouti, is serving a couple of existence sentences in an Israeli jail, and Israel has dominated out freeing him as a part of any switch for Israeli hostages held in Gaza through the Hamas militant crew.

As Israel’s battle with Hamas drags on, with communicate through the USA president, Donald Trump, and the Israeli high minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of uprooting Palestinians in Gaza to relocate them in other places, al-Sheikh might be beneath mounting power to unite the Palestinian management.

The PLO is a rival to Hamas, which received the closing nationwide elections in 2006 and isn’t within the PLO. Hamas seized keep an eye on of Gaza from Abbas’s forces in 2007, and reconciliation makes an attempt have time and again failed.

In a 2022 interview with the Associated Press, al-Sheikh defended his unpopular coordination with Israel, pronouncing there used to be no selection beneath the tricky instances of the profession.

“I am not a representative for Israel in the Palestinian territories,” he mentioned on the time. “We undertake the coordination because this is the prelude to a political solution for ending the occupation.”