Fatah official: Fayyad is an ingrate

PA prime minister accused of depriving faction of money, power as tensions heat-up among PA, Fatah officials.

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
fayyad lookin formal 311 (photo credit: AP)
fayyad lookin formal 311
(photo credit: AP)
A Fatah official in the West Bank has strongly criticized Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, accusing him of being ungrateful to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction.
The attack on Fayyad, who is from the small Third Way Party, is yet another sign of mounting tensions between the PA prime minister and Fatah.
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This was the first time in recent months that a top Fatah official, who serves as a spokesman for the faction, had come out in public against Fayyad.
In the past, some Fatah officials had accused Fayyad of “marginalizing” their faction and depriving it of financial aid.
Fatah has also been demanding a larger role in the government, arguing that it was inconceivable that Fayyad hold three or four ministerial posts.
In an interview with a London-based Arab newspaper last week, Fayyad denied reports about growing tensions with Abbas and Fatah.
However, Fahmi Za’areer, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, said on Sunday that Fayyad had been chosen by Fatah to head the government and “implement President Abbas’s pre-election platform and the PLO’s political program.”
According to Za’areer, Fayyad was appointed to the job so that Abbas would have enough time to “manage the conflict and end the occupation of our lands and people that has lasted for more than six decades.”
Za’areer, in an article published by the Bethlehem-based Maan news agency, also criticized the media for giving too much attention and credit to Fayyad.
“This government was not the brainchild of one person and its achievements are not his alone, no matter how much the media and cameras are mobilized,” Za’areer said, referring to Fayyad.
“The political reality is that all what the Fayyad government is doing is a translation of the president’s and Fatah’s platform and vision. The prime minister does not have a private vision. The government is in fact the government of the president and the PLO, contrary to what is being said here and there.”
The Fatah official said that the Fayyad government had nothing to do with political matters. He also mocked Western politicians and World Bank experts who have been heaping praise on Fayyad’s plan to unilaterally declare statehood within two years.
Abbas and Fatah have rejected Fayyad’s plan.
Za’areer repeated demands for appointing Fatah representatives to head key PA ministries.
“How can the prime minister also be finance minister, housing and works minister, Jerusalem affairs minister and information minister?” he asked. “He has become the minister of ministers and not the prime minister.”
The Fatah official also took issue with Fayyad for failing to say a good word about Fatah in the many interviews he has given to the media over the past few years. He said that Fayyad was being “ungrateful” to Fatah “although it has provided him with the proper atmosphere for success and defended him and his ministers.”
In a related development, Nasser al-Qidweh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, announced that he had no plans to succeed Abbas as PA president.
Qidweh’s announcement came in response to a report that said that he and other Fatah officials were preparing to challenge Abbas.
The PA’s official news agency, Wafa, had accused Qidweh of participating in a widespread campaign against Abbas and his policies.
The attack on Qidweh came following a report in The Wall Street Journal about growing opposition to Abbas within Fatah.
Qidweh denied that he had spoken to the newspaper or presented himself as a potential successor to Abbas.