Palestinians discuss new PM's role

The Palestinian parliament today began debating what powers the new job of prime minister should hold, amid suspicions that Yasser Arafat is prepared to give up little of his.

One senior official said a deal had already been cut behind-the-scenes that would leave him in charge of security and peace talks with the Israelis.

But Arafat’s number one choice for premier, Mahmoud Abbas – widely known as Abu Mazen – would get considerable authority over day-to-day affairs, including the naming and supervising of Cabinet ministers.

The power sharing deal, reached late last week by Arafat and Abbas, falls short of US and Israeli demands that a new prime minister effectively replace Arafat as the chief peace negotiator.

US President George Bush has said the Palestinians have to choose new leaders as a precondition for statehood.

Arafat critics also remained sceptical today, saying that while appointing a prime minister could be presented as genuine reform, they expected the Palestinian leader to find a way to cling to his almost absolute power.

“It would be a radical change for someone other than Arafat to be exercising broad powers,” said MP Ziad Abu Amr.

“It don’t think it will be easy for this prime minister to extract power from President Arafat.”

Yet the Arafat-Abbas deal was expected to win easy approval in the 88-member parliament because a majority of MPs belong to Arafat’s Fatah movement, which supports the proposed division of labour.

Seventy-eight of the MPs took part in the session at Arafat’s compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

The remaining 10 took part via video conference from Gaza City, having been barred by Israel from travelling to the West Bank. Israel has said those 10 have been involved in violent activities.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN envoy to the Mideast, said the international community had hoped the prime minister would have a key role in negotiations.

There was an expectation that “Abu Mazen would be fully empowered to go back to the table and start negotiation with a 100% authorisation from the legitimate Palestinian organ,” he said.

In their meeting today, Arafat and Abbas agreed Arafat would retain control of Palestinian security forces, and the final word on negotiations with Israel would remain with the “Palestinian leadership,” a body made up of the Cabinet, PLO executive and security commanders – under Arafat’s control.

Israel and the United States had insisted Arafat hand over authority to a powerful prime minister, retaining only a ceremonial role for himself.

The two countries have banned their officials from meeting the veteran leader, accusing him of not having taken steps to stop the Palestinian violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ruled out peace talks with the Palestinians until 29 months of violence is halted, but he has had meetings in the past with Abbas.