[rewrite this title Palestine presidencies .. What are it and how they are formed? | policy ]

With the decision of the Palestinian Central Council at its 32nd session on April 23 and 24, to create the position of “Vice -Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, President of the State of Palestine”, then the selection of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Secretary of the Committee, Hussein Al -Sheikh, for this site on the 26th of the same month, floats to the surface the issue of multiple Palestinian presidencies.

The political system in Palestine is based on several pillars, others complete sometimes, and its powers sometimes overlap, and each component has its boss, mechanism to form it and its own internal system, which is not always committed.

And with multiple components, sessions are multiple, for an occupied land and a web people. Although the elections are the basis for the formation of each component, they are broken most of the time, which sparked repeated demands to renew the “legitimacy” through the ballot box.

As for the presidencies, they are: President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, President of the Palestinian National Authority and three of them in the hands of President Mahmoud Abbas, in addition to the President of the Palestinian National Council and the President of the Central Council and their president is one is the spiritual of Fattouh currently, then the head of the Palestinian government and the head of the Legislative Council, and the following is a summary about each component and its president, the mechanism of his election and powers:

The State of Palestine

In a letter known as the “Declaration of the State of Palestine and its capital, Jerusalem” during the convening of the Palestinian National Council in the Algerian capital, on November 15, 1988, the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat announced the establishment of the “State of Palestine” on the land of Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.

In the following year, the Palestinian Central Council elected Arafat as the “Palestine” president and held the position until his death.

And behind Arafat, who died in 2004, the Palestinian Central Council was elected on October 10, 2008, the current President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the State of Palestine.

Since it obtained the status of “an unreasonable state with the capacity of the United Nations observer” by a decision adopted by the General Assembly on November 29, 2012, Palestine is seeking full membership.

PLO

The internal system of the PLO provides for the formation of an executive committee, all its members are elected by the National Council, and that the “Chairman of the Executive Committee”, which is the president of the organization, will be elected by the committee to be among its members.

The Executive Committee is the highest executive authority for the organization, as the organization’s government, and it undertakes the implementation of the policy, programs and plans decided by the National Council and is responsible before it.

Ahmed Al -Shugairi chaired the committee 3 sessions between 1965 and 1968, then Yahya Hammouda between July 1968 and February 1969.

Then the Palestinian National Council was elected on February 5, 1969 Arafat as the president of the committee and continued to renew his election for the position in the council’s sessions until his death on November 11, 2004.

After the death of Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the committee until today.

National Council

The National Council is like the Parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and it is its supreme authority and sets its policy, plans and programs.

The statute of the organization stipulates that the members of the National Council are elected by direct voting by the Palestinian people under a system set by the Executive Committee for this purpose.

It also stipulates that the National Council will have a presidency office composed of the “President of the National Council” and two deputies of the President, and a secretary elected by the National Council at the beginning of its convening, and if the elections for the National Council cannot be held, the National Council continues to stand until the election conditions are prepared.

The presidency of the National Council, Ahmad Al-Shugairi (1964-1967), Abdul Mohsen Al-Qattan (1968), Yahya Hammouda (1969), Khaled Al-Fahoum (1974-1984), Sheikh Abdul Hamid Al-Sayyat (1984-1996), Salim Al-Zaanoun (1996-2022), Rouhi Fattouh (2022- until now).

Central Council

The Palestinian Central Council forms a link between the Palestinian National Council and the executive committee between each normal councils of the council.

The council consists of the president and members of the Executive Committee, representatives of the Palestinian factions, forces, student unions, the Women’s Union, the Teachers Union and the Union of Workers, as well as representatives of the competencies, and the head of the National Council will be the head of the Central Council.

Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian statute states that the regime of government in Palestine is a parliamentary democratic system that depends on political and partisan pluralism and in which the “President of the National Authority” is elected directly by the people, for a period of 4 years.

The Basic Law has authorized the President of the National Authority many specializations such as the leadership of the Palestinian forces, the appointment of representatives of the National Authority to other countries, and the development of legislation in the event of necessity, and that the Prime Minister choose and assign him to form his government, and he may dismiss him or accept his resignation, and he may ask him to invite the Council of Ministers to convene.

On January 20, 1996, Yasser Arafat was elected the first president of the Palestinian National Authority, which arose according to the Oslo agreement between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1993.

Arafat continued his position, along with his presidency of the organization and the State of Palestine, until his death in 2004.

On January 19, 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected head of the Palestinian Authority and is still in office for more than 20 years.

In November 2024, the Palestinian President issued a “constitutional advertisement” stipulating that the head of the National Assembly take over temporarily at the vacancy of the position, while the basic law states that if the vacancy is held by the head of the Legislative Council, 60 days are held during which elections are held.

The Palestinian government

The basic law stipulated that the head of the National Authority choose the “Prime Minister” and assign him to form the government, which helps the head of the authority in performing his duties and exercising his powers, and the government is responsible before the President and the Palestinian Legislative Council.

A number of personalities were punished for the presidency of the government, the first of which was Abbas in 2003, and he was the first prime minister of the first Palestinian government to be formed, headed by Muhammad Mustafa today.

Legislative Council

The internal system of the Palestinian Legislative Council provides for the election of the “Chairman of the Legislative Council” by members of the Council in the first session after the elections.

The Legislative Council elections were held the first time after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1996, according to the Oslo agreement in 1993, and he was the first chairman of the Council Ahmed Qurei Abu Alaa, and he continued until the second elections in 2005, then Aziz Al -Dweik was elected president of the Council until the Palestinian Constitutional Court’s decision to dissolve in 2018.