April 15, 2003. Copyright, 2003, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Profile of Palestinian prime minister-designate, Mahmoud Abbas
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, April 15, Graphic News:  It was never going to be easy for Mahmoud Abbas to serve in his new post as prime minister. Slowly but surely the Palestinians are edging away from one-man rule by Yasser Arafat, and Abbas finds himself at the raw centre of the power struggle. A lot depends on its outcome.

By failing to meet the deadline to name his cabinet, Abbas, 67, appeared to have stumbled at the first hurdle. If, however, he eventually succeeds in shaking up the 21-member body it may count as a crucial step towards peace. U.S. President Bush said recently he looked forward to the naming of the cabinet so he could release the Òroad mapÓ for Middle East peace.

Since his appointment in March, Abbas, a pragmatist backed by the White House and Israel, has navigated a road strewn with obstacles. Several were put there by Arafat who reluctantly created the post amid rising impatience with his regime. The veteran PLO leader has insisted on keeping control over both the General Intelligence Force and the National Security Force, and is generally resistant to too much tampering with his ministerial line-up.

Abbas, on the other hand, favours an overhaul, including installing former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan as interior minister. Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, believes Dahlan would bring a quick end to the bloody uprising -- which he has called a ÒmistakeÓ. Talk that has earned him a reputation in some quarters for being too conciliatory to the Israelis.

Born in 1935, Abbas studied law in Egypt before completing a PhD in Moscow. He is known to be a private man with simple tastes. Like Arafat, he is one of the few surviving founders of Fatah, the main political group within the PLO. The two were together during a long exile and Abbas has been secretary-general of the PLO executive committee since 1996. Today they have a stormy relationship, but Abbas has held back from openly criticising Arafat.

While Arafat is the more charismatic of the two, Abbas has been called Òthe brains of the PLOÓ. His long career has been devoted to the search for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It was Abbas who led the Palestinian negotiating team to the secret Oslo talks, and it was he who signed the historic peace accord with Israel in 1993. Some say Abbas is too keen to hark back to the Oslo days (he wrote a book about the process leading to the peace agreement), and have expressed fears that he will agree a Palestinian state on any terms to achieve peace. 

Clearly, he cannot turn the clock back. But the real test is whether he can turn it forward.
/ENDS