ISRAEL/WEST BANK/GAZA/EGYPT: FILE OF POSSIBLE SUCCESSOR TO PALETINIAN PRESIDENT YASSER ARAFAT

Record ID: 400942

  • Title: ISRAEL/WEST BANK/GAZA/EGYPT: FILE OF POSSIBLE SUCCESSOR TO PALETINIAN PRESIDENT YASSER ARAFAT
  • Date: 5th November 2004
  • Summary: (W4) RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (FILE - NOVEMBER 29, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER AHMED QURIE AND U.S. ENVOY ANTHONY ZINNI MEETING 0.12 (W4) JERICHO, WEST BANK (FILE - AUGUST 8, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 2. SLV QURIE AND U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL 0.25 (W4) RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (FILE) (REUTER
  • Embargoed: 20th November 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL./ RAMALLAH AND JERICHO, WEST BANK/ GAZA/ SHARM AL SHEIKH, EGYPT
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVAB5CVU0K58MEZHQHXBNSR1M2V9
  • Story Text: File of possible successors to Palestinian President
    Yasser Arafat.




    As Palestinian President Yasser Arafat clung on to
    life in a French military hospital there were conflicting
    reports on the state of his health on Friday (November 5).

    Speculation has already begun on his eventual successor
    should he die.

    Arafat is head of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian
    govern
    ing body in the West Bank and Gaza, the
    broader Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which is
    responsible for peace talks with Israel, and the mainstream
    Palestinian nationalist movement Fatah.

    If he dies, the speaker of parliament would oversee a
    caretaker Palestinian Authority for 60 days, by which point
    presidential elections would be held. The current speaker
    is Rawhi Fattouh.

    Prime Minister Ahmed Ahmed Qurie would be expected to
    run the day-to-day affairs of the Authority, which was
    established under interim peace accords with Israel a
    decade ago.

    Qurie, 66, a veteran ally of Arafat, was the key
    negotiator in secret talks with Israelis in Oslo that led
    to interim peace deals in 1993. Qurie, also known as Abu
    Ala, gained a reputation as one of the more skilled
    Palestinian politicians in his role as speaker of the
    Palestinian legislature. But unlike Arafat, he lacks
    charisma and has little popularity with the public. As
    prime minister, he threatened to resign several times over
    Arafat's failure to give him sufficient powers, but was
    always persuaded to stay.

    Former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas has been running
    the PLO, where he is Arafat's number two, in the
    Palestinian leader's absence and would continue in that
    provisional capacity if he dies, pending an internal
    election. The PLO represents Palestinians at home and
    worldwide.

    Abbas has also taken provisional charge of Fatah's
    central committee. Elections to the key executive body were
    last held in 1989 and a fresh vote has been repeatedly put
    off.

    Seen as a possible successor to Arafat in the long
    term, Barghouthi is serving an Israeli jail sentence for
    orchestrating murders, a charge he denied. The fiery orator
    is widely regarded as the grassroots political leader of
    the uprising begun in 2000 and helped coordinate the first
    "Intifada" that ended in 1993.

    Articulate and possessing personal magnetism,
    45-year-old Barghouthi, became the most popular Palestinian
    leader after the president because of his perceived
    distance from corruption in Arafat's circle.

    Mahammed Dahlan is a former interior minister and
    security chief in Gaza without an official post. But he
    remains perhaps the most powerful of several strong
    contenders in a territory subject to factional fighting. He
    is prominent in a younger pro-reform generation posing a
    leadership challenge to the old guard around Arafat.

    International mediators have courted Dahlan as someone
    who could instil order in Gaza after a planned Israeli
    pullout next year. He was among Palestinian officials who
    accompanied Arafat when the Palestinian leader was
    airlifted to France for medical care.




  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register