Arafat may appoint prime minister to ease president's workload

YASSER ARAFAT is considering appointing a prime minister to share the running of day-to-day government affairs once a Palestinian State is declared after a planned January election.

"He says in an independent State there needs to be a prime minister," said Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath. "The prime minister solves a lot of daily problems that the president should not address."

Shaath said the beleaguered Palestinian leader, who for months has been largely confined by Israel to his battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, signed a decree asking him to convene a team of legal experts to come up with proposals on this and other constitutional issues.

Shifting at least some executive powers to a prime minister could provide a way out of the impasse created by the refusal of Israel and, in recent weeks, the United States to deal with Arafat directly. Last month, President George Bush said Palestinians should choose new leaders "not compromised by terror." Ranaan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the idea of Arafat remaining as president was "acceptable" to Israel "as long as Arafat does not stand in the way of a significant change.

"The question is how to make it so his influence is not harmful. As long as Arafat controls the security apparatus and the money, there will be no change." A senior Bush administration official said the administration was aware of Arafat's idea. "It's out there," said the official.

"It's one of the scenarios we've heard about."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday that a solution that would create the post of president for Arafat and prime minister for another Palestinian leader "is a formula I'd be more than willing to consider."

A senior Palestinian source said Arafat had decided on the idea but was waiting for the right moment when he might be able to present it as a concession worthy of a political reward from the United States such as an end to the personal boycott.

The idea still faces considerable hurdles and Shaath emphasised that it was conditional on the establishment of a state. He said the Palestinians hoped to declare a Palestinian State around the time of presidential and parliamentary elections, tentatively scheduled for January.

Arafat said yesterday he will run in the presidential election if the PLO leadership approves his candidacy.

US officials have proposed a "provisional" Palestinian State on the lands that were transferred to the Palestinian Authority as part of the 1990s interim accords covering some two-thirds of Gaza and 42% of the West Bank.

Final borders and other contentious issues would be negotiated thereafter.