Palestinian Central Council overwhelmingly approves establishment of vice president post

JERUSALEM/ISTANBUL

The Palestinian Central Council on Thursday approved the creation of the position of vice president of the State of Palestine.

The council overwhelmingly voted in favor of establishing the position of vice president of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the president of the State of Palestine, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

The decision provides for the vice president to be appointed "from among the members of the Executive Committee, nominated by the committee’s president (Mahmoud Abbas) and approved by its members. The president has the authority to assign duties to the vice president, dismiss them from the position, or accept their resignation,” according to the agency.

Wafa said that 170 members voted in favor of the decision, while one member voted against it and another abstained. Voting took place both in person and via Zoom.

President Abbas had previously announced during a speech at an emergency Arab summit on Palestine held in Cairo last month that the Palestinian leadership was moving toward “restructuring the state’s leadership frameworks.”

The Central Council meetings continued for the second and final day at the Palestinian presidential headquarters in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

The Central Council is a permanent body stemming from the Palestinian National Council of the PLO and is delegated with some of its powers.

These meetings were boycotted by key Palestinian factions. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) justified its absence by describing the council session as "a partial step that cannot be a substitute for the steps outlined in the dialogue rounds and their repeated outcomes, which have been suspended more than once."

However, the PFLP affirmed its “commitment to continuing dialogue with Fatah and all national and Islamic forces to build national unity based on a national program and strategy.”

The PFLP is the second-largest faction in the PLO after Fatah. The PLO is recognized by the UN and the Arab League as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine and was founded in 1964 to represent Palestinians in international forums.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the third-largest faction within the PLO, also announced its withdrawal from the Central Council meetings, citing “the absence of the minimum required level of dialogue before its convening.”

These developments follow Abbas’s issuance of a constitutional declaration in November 2024 stipulating that the head of the Palestinian National Council, currently Rawhi Fattouh, would temporarily assume the role of president of the Palestinian Authority in the event of a vacancy.

The Palestinian group Hamas said “the outcomes of the Palestinian Central Council meeting represent a deep national disappointment.”

“It ignored the Palestinian people's aspirations for unity, especially amid the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and the escalating threats targeting their existence and cause, particularly in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” the statement said.

Hamas stressed that “rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization on national and democratic foundations, activating a unified leadership framework and holding comprehensive elections inside and outside Palestine are the true foundations for restoring unity and building a liberation project that reflects the will of the Palestinian people.”