On August 22, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas resigned from his position as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, along with nine other committee members. While initially interpreted by commentators as the implementation of Abbas’s repeated threats to resign as leader of the key Palestinian institutions, developments so far indicate that, rather than signaling Abbas’s departure from Palestinian political life, this step is intended to consolidate his power within the PLO by removing some of his critics and appointing loyalists to the committee.

BACKGROUND

The executive committee, the PLO’s highest decisionmaking body, is composed of eighteen members elected by the Palestinian National Council (PNC). The current committee, which was elected in 2009, includes representatives of all the PLO’s constituent factions as well as a number of independents.

For its part, the PNC is often described as the PLO’s “legislative body.” It officially consists of 800 members, but only about 700 of these remained the last time the PNC met for a special session in 2009. Most PNC members reside outside the West Bank and Gaza, and many of the diaspora members oppose the principles of the Oslo Accords and President Abbas’s policies.

According to PLO regulations, if fewer than a third of the committee’s seats become vacant, the vacancies are filled during the next regular PNC session. (Even as a special session was held in 2009, the last regular PNC session hasn’t occurred since 1996.) If more than a third become vacant, then the vacancies are filled in a special session to be held within thirty days. For both regular and special PNC sessions, two-thirds of members constitute a quorum. In cases of force majeure, vacancies are filled in an emergency session by “the Executive Committee, the PNC leadership and any PNC members who are able to attend” without the need for a quorum.

Read the article in full at the Washington Institute.