Palestinian president appoints aide as potential successor
RAMALLAH
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has named a veteran aide and confidant as his new vice president in a major step by the aging leader to designate a successor.
The appointment of Hussein al-Sheikh as vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president. But it makes him the front-runner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party who hope to succeed the 89-year-old Abbas.
Abbas hopes to play a major role in postwar Gaza. He has been under pressure from Western and Arab allies to rehabilitate the Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He has announced a series of reforms in recent months, and last week his Fatah movement approved the new position of PLO vice president.
The PLO is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and oversees the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Abbas has led both entities for two decades.
Under last week’s decision, the new vice president, coming from the PLO’s 16-member executive committee, would succeed Abbas in a caretaker capacity if the president dies or becomes incapacitated.
That would make him the front-runner to replace Abbas on a permanent basis, though not guarantee it. The PLO’s executive committee would need to approve that appointment and the body is filled with veteran politicians who see themselves as worthy contenders.
Sheikh, 64, is a veteran leader of Abbas' 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.
