Abbas ready to take up reins

2004-10-29 16:30

Ramallah - Former prime minister Mahmud Abbas appears in pole position to grab the lion's share of power from Yasser Arafat, taking temporary charge of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian leader's Fatah faction during his enforced absence in France.

Abbas, who quit as premier in September last year after barely four months in the job, will be in the chair for a meeting of the PLO's executive committee on Saturday.

"It will be the first time that a meeting of executive committee has met without Yasser Arafat as its president," Bassam al-Sahli, a member of the committee, told AFP.

And negotiations minister Saeb Erakat confirmed that Abbas - better known as Abu Mazen - has been put in charge of the Fatah central committee while Arafat is treated for a potentially fatal blood disorder in Paris.

Abbas' successor as prime minister, Ahmed Qorei, has also been handed responsibility for calling and chairing meetings of Arafat's national security council, effectively cementing his reputation as a loyal deputy.

Bruising confrontations

Many people had written off 69-year-old Abbas as a political force in the aftermath of his resignation, tendered following a series of bruising confrontations with his long-time colleague.

He has kept largely out of the public eye and cut down on his meetings.

But he clung onto his position as general secretary of the PLO and as deputy head of Fatah even though he has not actually attended a Fatah meeting since his time as prime minister.

Arafat and Abbas were not on speaking terms for months after the resignation. But a rapprochement was sealed earlier in the week when Abbas paid a bedside visit to Arafat in his leadership compound where Saturday's PLO meeting will take place.

One Fatah source said that Abbas's swift move to settle his differences with Arafat was an indicator that the former prime minister at least was not convinced about Arafat's powers of recovery.

If Abbas were to become overall leader on a long-term basis in the event of Arafat's death or incapacitation, it could have a galvanising impact on the peace process.

Praised by Sharon, Bush

Arafat has been boycotted by Israel and the United States since the collapse of peace negotiations with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.

In contrast, Abbas was hosted and praised by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W Bush during his brief premiership.

Qorei is also seen as a relative moderate but has been unable to convince Sharon or Bush that he is worthy of a meeting.

Arafat, never a man to share power willingly and who only appointed Abbas as his first prime minister after intense international pressure, has been criticised for not laying down any line of succession.

But his chief advisor, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said that suggestions that he had allowed a vacuum to be created were wide of the mark.

- AFP