Ramallah: Rami Hamdallah, the newly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister, has resigned from his position two weeks after he was sworn in.
The move came after Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, authorised Mohammad Mustafa to sign agreements with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority, which Hamdallah called a direct violation of his powers.
Hamdallah demanded that the privilege be withdrawn from Mustafa, who is his deputy, and protested by offering his resignation letter to President Abbas.
Following several meetings between Abbas and Hamdallah at the Palestinian Presidential Headquarters (Mukataa), Abbas accepted the resignation two weeks later.
The Palestinian leadership officially announced that Abbas has asked Rami Hamdallah to continue to govern in a caretaker mode.
Dr Wasel Abu Yousuf, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, said the caretaker period would last for five weeks. “The Palestinian leadership is currently working on forming a national unity government comprising technocrats as per agreements with Hamas,” he told Gulf News.
Abu Yousuf said the new national unity government would be under the chairmanship of President Abbas himself. “We rely on the Cairo and Doha agreements to establish a national unity government,” he said.
A senior Palestinian official said that as no agreement had been reached between the Palestinian presidency and Hamdallah on the issue of the prime minister’s powers, Hamdallah’s resignation was accepted.
Now, either Mohammad Eshtayah, a member of Fatah Central Committee and President of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, or Mohammad Mustafa will lead a new government in Ramallah.
Mustafa, who is the Chairman of the Palestinian Investment Fund, had been the key candidate to replace Salam Fayyad who resigned after being the Palestinian premier for six years, but an official claimed that the US Administration did not strongly support Mustafa to take office. The source claimed that Hamdallah had a better chance and that Mustafa and Ziad Abu Ein were appointed by Abbas as his deputies.
The official added that Hamdallah had initially objected to the fact that Abbas had appointed the two deputies instead of himself.
“Prior to the appointment of Hamdallah as prime minister, Abbas authorised Mustafa to sign PNA agreements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which forced Hamdallah to offer his resignation,” the official told Gulf News. “There has been no way on earth to hide differences in the Palestinian leadership which have sparked since day one.”
Dr Abdul Sattar Qasim, a commentator and head of the Political Science Department at Al Najah National University, said that the issue of powers within the PNA was an extremely complicated issue.
“Nobody in the PNA knows his powers as there is no law to control this issue,” he told Gulf News.
“It is not right to hide the differences between the leadership from the Palestinian public which is treated like a football by Palestinian politicians. There are no clear rules for the game,” he said.
