Ramallah, Palestinian Territories — Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas appointed a close aide as the first ever vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Saturday, positioning him as a potential successor to the veteran leader.
Hussein al-Sheikh was appointed by Abbas, 89, after the vice presidency position was created during a convention held in Ramallah this week.
The new post follows years of international pressure to reform the PLO and comes as Arab and Western powers envision an expanded role for Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) in the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip.
“Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas appointed Hussein al-Sheikh as a deputy (vice president) of the PLO leadership,” a member of the organization’s executive committee, Wasel Abu Yousef, told AFP.
Founded in 1964, the PLO is empowered to negotiate and sign international treaties on behalf of the Palestinian people, while the PA is responsible for governance in parts of the Palestinian territories.
The PLO is an umbrella organization comprising several Palestinian factions, but not Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are currently at war with Israeli forces in Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim gave the appointment a frosty reception.
“The Palestinian people are not a herd to be imposed upon leaders with dubious history who have tied their present and future to the occupation,” he said in a statement.
“Legitimacy is held only by the Palestinian people, and its tools are the rifle for resisting the occupation, and the ballot box. The guardianship over our people is long gone.”
Sheikh, 64, is a veteran leader of Abbas’s Fatah movement, which dominates the PA, and is considered close to the president.
He spent more than 10 years in Israeli jails in the late 1970s and early 80s, during which he learned Hebrew.
In 2022, he was made the PLO executive committee’s secretary-general and head of its negotiations department, a sensitive portfolio, demonstrating his close ties to Abbas.
Abbas also recently appointed him as the head of a committee overseeing Palestinian diplomatic missions abroad.
‘Prelude to creating a successor’
Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri called for the creation of a vice presidential post within the PA itself.
“This is not a reform measure but rather a response to external pressure,” said Masri of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies.
“What is required is a vice president for the PA to whom the powers could be transferred,” he told AFP.
However, analyst Aref Jaffal said the new role was created to pave the way for someone to take the reins from Abbas, “as there are many things the Palestinian situation requires”.
“The Palestinian political system is already miserable, so I believe that all these arrangements are a prelude to creating a successor to Abbas,” Jaffal, the director of the Al-Marsad Election Monitoring Center, told AFP.
Saudi Arabia welcomed the “reform steps” taken by Abbas in appointing Sheikh as his deputy.
“These reform steps will strengthen Palestinian political efforts… foremost among them the right to self-determination through the establishment of their independent state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the Saudi foreign ministry said.
In March, at a summit in Cairo about Gaza’s post-war future, Abbas had announced he would create a vice presidency within the PLO.
Move opposed by factions –
Abbas has been head of the PA since 2005 following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The following year he was elected to a four-year term, with no presidential vote since.
According to Palestinian officials, in the event of Abbas’s death or resignation, the vice president would be expected to become the acting head of the PLO and of the State of Palestine, which is recognized by nearly 150 countries.
Abbas had brought a proposal for creating the vice president post during a PLO convention this week, but it was opposed by several factions who staged a walkout.
They argued that the initiative threatened the PLO’s sovereignty and was a sign of foreign interference.
The PA is teetering on the brink of financial collapse and, following the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, several international donors have increasingly insisted that financial support be tied to concrete political and institutional reforms.
On Wednesday, Abbas argued that creating a vice presidency would strengthen Palestinian institutions and bolster international recognition of the Palestinian state.
Some analysts view the move as a calculated attempt by Abbas to project the appearance that he is decentralizing power.
