Ramallah: Salam Fayyad will remain in office as the Palestinian premier till the moment the tow Palestinian rival Fatah and Hamas reconcile and form a national unity government, said a senior Palestinian official. According to Dr. Hassan Khraishah, the Deputy Head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Fayyad will stay in office and remains the Palestinian Prime Minister till a moment Fatah and Hamas implement reconciliation on the ground. “Reconciliation seems currently to be very far away from Palestinian reach,” he said. “Reconciliation is now farer than it was six months ago.”
He said that Fayyad has headed the caretaker government since the year 2007, expecting the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to assign Fayyad to form a new government in case reconciliation efforts between Fatah and Hamas delay or fail. “The status quo in line with the Palestinian premier is expected to remain unchanged and Fayyad will remain the head of the government,” he said.
“It is strange that Fatah and Hamas who had signed two reconciliation deals in Cairo and Doha have so far failed to name a premier and ministers for a new national unity government,” he said, adding that this was a simple move that could be done and the Palestinian public has eager for it a long time ago. “Fayyad who has resigned can not be held responsible for the failures of both Fatah and Hamas,” he said. “Fayyad should not be made the escapegoat in this case.”
D. Khraishah blamed the lack of seriousness of both Fatah and Hamas in the implementation of the Palestinian internal reconciliation. “Both rivals, Fatah and Hamas are not serious about reconciliation which can come true if genuine will existed from both sides,” he said. “The Palestinian reconciliation has been moving from bad to worse and the hope to achieve it has been dramatically vanishing,” he stressed.
“There have been no major differences between Fayyad’s and Abbas’s policies in the Palestinian territories,” he said. “Therefore there will be no need from Abbas’s side to fire Fayyad,” he added, stressing that their differences can easily be bridged.
“Abbas has also been under regional and international pressure to keep Fayyad who is a trusted figure by the international community, on top of the Palestinian government,” he said.
Abbas has unilaterally announced this week that he started consultations to form a national unity government to oversee the Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections. Hamas on the other hand reacted negatively to Abbas’s announcement, stressing that the Islamist movement had not been consulted about the start of the consultations and that violated what has been agreed upon in Cairo and Doha, and demanded that all articles of the reconciliation deal to be implemented in one package as a condition to achieve reconciliation.
