Abbas to swear in Palestinian emergency govt

Ramallah, West Bank, June 16: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will swear in a new prime minister and emergency cabinet today, a top aide said, replacing the Hamas-led government he fired after the group's bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip.

Abbas has tapped Salam Fayyad, a Western-backed independent lawmaker, to serve as prime minister of the new government in what Hamas Islamists said amounted to a coup.

''Salam Fayyad will finalise the formation of his government and the new government will be sworn in today,'' the Abbas aide said.

The emergency government will be comprised of 11 lawmakers, the aide said.

The United States, Israel and European states plan to open the financial taps to the new government after a 15-month embargo of the Hamas-led administration pushed the Palestinian Authority to the brink of financial collapse.

Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said Fayyad's cabinet faced daunting challenges, chief among them ''to ensure the rule of law and to prevent the spread of lawlessness from Gaza to the West Bank.'' The security challenge was highlighted in orders issued by Palestinian Police Chief Kamal el-Sheikh, who is based in the West Bank, to his men in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

He ordered the police, who have long been dominated by Fatah, neither to report to work nor to follow Hamas's orders.

''The police force is part of the Palestinian national security forces and its chief commander is the president,'' he said.

Abbas sacked the three-month-old unity government he formed with Hamas on Thursday after the group routed his forces in the Gaza Strip and began imposing a new order in the enclave after days of bloody civil war.

Haniyeh, who sits in Gaza, has refused to accept his dismissal as prime minister.

Under Palestinian law, Abbas can declare a state of emergency for up to 30 days. The state of emergency could be extended for another 30 days, but only after winning the approval of two thirds of the parliament.

Hamas has a majority in the parliament although Israel's arrests of nearly half of Hamas's deputies put that majority in doubt and also make it hard to reach a quorum. That could enable Abbas to keep the state of emergency in place longer.

Some Fatah and US diplomats have argued that Abbas could rule by decree for six months to a year ahead of new elections.

Reuters

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