PLO creates vice presidency role amid succession speculation and push for reform

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to establish the position of vice president, in what is widely seen as a move to prepare for a potential succession to 89-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The decision comes amid mounting international pressure for reform within Palestinian political institutions and discussions over the future governance of Gaza following the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

 

At a two-day meeting held in Ramallah, the PLO Central Council approved the creation of the vice presidency with a 170-1 vote, and one abstention. Rizq Namoura, a member of the council, described the outcome as “almost unanimous” during an interview with Palestine TV, noting that this was the first time in the PLO’s history such a position would exist.

 

Abbas first proposed the idea during a summit in Cairo in March, where Arab and Western leaders discussed the post-war political structure of Gaza. The new role is designed to be both the vice chair of the PLO Executive Committee and the vice president of the state of Palestine, an entity recognised by nearly 150 countries.

 

Under the new arrangement, Abbas will choose the vice president from among the 15 members of the PLO Executive Committee. However, the committee is dominated by pro-Abbas loyalists. Moreover, the president will have the power to dismiss the vice president, raising questions about the effectiveness of the new measure.

 

The move appears aimed at addressing long-standing concerns from the international community about the ageing leader’s failure to name a successor or initiate institutional reforms. Abbas, who has led both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA) for two decades, has remained in office despite his official term as president of the PA having expired in 2009. The last presidential election took place in 2005, following the death of Yasser Arafat, and no successor has been publicly groomed since.

 

Some observers believe that setting up the vice president’s post should be seen as a leadership transition. If Abbas dies or he relinquishes his post, the vice president will take over as the next leader of the PLO as well as the state of Palestine. Still, there is no clarity about how and when the vice president would be appointed, and whether the post would actually address the legitimacy crisis facing the PLO leadership.

 

The international community, especially PA’s Western donors, have been demanding reforms as they are concerned about reports of corruption, authoritarianism and a lack of electoral legitimacy in the PA. Many of them believe that reforming the PLO and the PA is essential if both entities are to play a major role in the future administration of Gaza, as part of a post-war reconstruction and peace framework.

 

At the moment, the PA has limited authority in parts of the West Bank where Israel is steadily increasing its control. However, its presence in Gaza has been nominal since 2007, when Hamas took charge after a violent split from Fatah, the PLO faction under Abbas. Hamas had won legislative elections the previous year, but relations quickly deteriorated, culminating in the PA’s ejection from the territory.

 

Hamas is not a member of the PLO, which functions as an umbrella organisation of various Palestinian political factions that signed the 1993 Oslo Accords with Israel. Those agreements established the PA and outlined a vision for eventual Palestinian statehood—one that has never materialised. Multiple attempts at reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah have failed, including a 2017 agreement brokered in Cairo and a follow-up pact signed in Beijing in 2023 involving 14 Palestinian factions. Efforts to unify Palestinian governance remain mired in distrust and mutual accusations.

 

The latest announcement of the vice-presidency came just a day after Abbas delivered one of his strongest-ever public rebukes of Hamas and accused it of providing Israel with excuses to prolong its military campaign in Gaza. Referring to Hamas as “sons of dogs”, he demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages and called for the militant group to disarm, relinquish control of Gaza and operate purely as a political party under the authority of the PA and the PLO. “These hostages are Israel’s justification for continuing this war,” Abbas declared. “Hamas must hand over everything and get us out of this ordeal.”

Hamas quickly rejected Abbas’s comments. A senior Hamas official, Bassem Naim, accused him of “suspiciously” siding with Israel and called the remarks “insulting”. The Hamas-aligned Palestinian Mujahideen Movement also condemned Abbas, accusing him of undermining Palestinian unity and ignoring the sacrifices made by the people of Gaza.

Despite the harsh rhetoric, Abbas reiterated calls for a ceasefire and urged the international community to convene a peace conference and implement existing United Nations Security Council resolutions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

As the war in Gaza goes on endlessly, with Israel intensifying its attacks on a daily basis and even speaking about a permanent occupation of the territory, Abbas’s vision for a unified Palestinian front under PLO leadership appears increasingly urgent. With his own political legitimacy in question and unity talks stalled the creation of a vice presidency may offer the appearance of progress. Whether that turns into real change remains to be seen.

 

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Middle East