Region | Palestinian Territories
Fayyad served as finance minister
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed independent lawmaker Salam Fayyad yesterday to serve as prime minister of an emergency government rejected by Hamas Islamists.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 June 16, 2007
- Image Credit: Reuters
- Independent lawmaker Salam Fayyad.
Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed independent lawmaker Salam Fayyad yesterday to serve as prime minister of an emergency government rejected by Hamas Islamists.
Fayyad, who has twice served as Palestinian finance minister, enjoys Western backing and controls a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) account that could be used to fund the emergency government.
Below are facts about Fayyad:
- The pro-Western economist was finance minister from 2002-2005. He worked for the World Bank from 1987-1995 and was the International Monetary Fund representative to the Palestinian Authority from 1995-2001.
- As finance minister, the US-educated Fayyad initiated major reforms of the financial system that won international praise. He also worked hard to curb official corruption.
- Fayyad resigned in late 2005 to run as a founder of the Third Way party in Palestinian parliamentary elections. The party did poorly against the long dominant Fatah faction and also the Hamas Islamist movement, winning only two seats.
- Fayyad rejected feelers from Hamas to become prime minister after the Islamists stunned Fatah to win the parliamentary elections. Fayyad said he presented several conditions, including that Hamas recognise Israel, which the group rejected.
- Shortly after taking office in March 2006, Hamas said it inherited a bankrupt Palestinian Authority and more than $1.3 billion in debt. That ignited a war of words between Hamas and Fayyad, including a detailed newspaper article by Fayyad in which he defended his tenure.
Easing sanctions
- Fayyad was pressured to accept the position of finance minister when Hamas and Fatah agreed in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, to form a unity government in March 2007. Fayyad enjoys international backing and, before the unity government was disbanded by Abbas, was partially successful in easing Western economic sanctions imposed after Hamas took power in 2006.
- Fayyad was born in 1952 in the West Bank village of Deir Al Ghosoon, near the town of Tulkarem.
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