PLO votes to create first-ever vice-president post

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) voted on Thursday to establish the position of vice president, potentially paving the way for a successor to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

The move follows years of foreign calls to reform the organisation, and comes as Arab and Western powers envision an expanded role for Abbas' Palestinian Authority (PA) in the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip.

"A vote was held to create the position of vice president," Rizq Namoura, a member of the PLO's central council, said in an interview with Palestine TV, adding the outcome was "almost unanimous" in favour of establishing a number two role for the first time in the organisation's history.

The Palestinian official news agency Wafa confirmed the vote.

Palestinian analyst Aref Jaffal said the new role was created to pave the way for someone to take the reins from Abbas, now 89, "as there are many things the Palestinian situation requires".

"The Palestinian political system is already miserable, so I believe that all these arrangements are a prelude to creating a successor to Abbas," Jaffal, the director of the Al-Marsad Election Monitoring Center, told AFP.

In March, at a summit in Cairo about Gaza's post-war future, Abbas had announced he would create a vice presidency within the PLO, of which he is chairman.

Foreign backers of the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- which exercises limited administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and is also headed by Abbas as president -- have long asked that both it and the PLO be reformed.

Abbas has been head of the PA since 2005 following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The following year he was elected to a four-year term, with no presidential vote since.

Founded in 1964, the PLO is empowered to negotiate and sign international treaties on behalf of the Palestinian people, while the PA is responsible for governance in parts of the Palestinian territories.

The PLO is an umbrella organisation comprising several Palestinian factions, but not the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are currently at war with Israeli forces in Gaza.

In the event of Abbas's death or resignation, the vice president would be expected to become the acting head of the PLO and of the State of Palestine, which is recognised by nearly 150 countries, according to Palestinian officials.

- 'Western pressure' -

The PLO has been holding a convention in Ramallah since Wednesday to thrash out various political issues.

Hamas criticised the convention, saying it "deepens division, reinforces unilateralism, and disappoints our people's hopes for unity".

"We in Hamas reject the continuation of this unilateral course and affirm our commitment to rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization on national and democratic foundations," it said in a statement.

Several Palestinian factions in the West Bank walked out of the meet on Thursday after the proposal to create a vice presidency came up.

The groups argued the initiative threatened the PLO's sovereignty and was a sign of foreign interference.

"This session was convened under Western pressure, particularly from the United States," said Ramzi Rabah, a senior official from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), a Marxist-Leninist party that withdrew from the convention.

Rabah accused foreign powers of using "reform" as a pretext to dilute the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinian National Initiative, a progressive political party, also left the session citing "external pressures".

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another Marxist-Leninist movement, also walked out, saying the reform agenda was premature and lacked genuine consultation.

Out of 188 voting members of the PLO's central council, 170 were in favour of creating a vice presidency, according to Wafa.

The PA is teetering on the brink of financial collapse, and following the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, several international donors have increasingly insisted financial support be tied to concrete political and institutional reforms.

On Wednesday, Abbas argued creating a vice presidency would strengthen Palestinian institutions and bolster international recognition of the Palestinian state.

Some analysts view the move as a calculated attempt by Abbas to project the appearance that he is decentralising power.