PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh is to carry out a limited cabinet reshuffle on Friday, in what appears to be a gesture designed to appease the Palestinian street’s demand for reform. Shtayyeh’s boss, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is under tremendous domestic pressure.
The 85-year-old, who has been president since 2005, this past January scheduled the first presidential and legislative elections in 15 and 16 years, respectively, and then postponed them indefinitely. His popularity has plummeted in recent years, according to opinion polls, and calls for him to step down have increased amid protests condemning crackdowns on freedoms and demanding change.
The internationally supported PA in the West Bank is trying to show it is responsive to thepopular demands for reform, following mounting criticism of Abbas’ security forces. The troubled leader is scrambling to find ways to ease pressure and boost his legitimacy.
Nour Odeh, a member of the Democratic National Assembly movement’s steering committee, questions the value of the partial reshuffle, telling The Media Line the change to the government is taking place without any kind of national consultation. “It’s not clear what the criterion of consideration is; I think the names are irrelevant at this point,” she says. “Why were these people changed? Why are these new names being proposed?"
"All this change does not address the real problem, which is the lack of national dialogue on the deep crisis of the political system, the intransigence of those in power regarding elections,” says Odeh.
Supporters of Abbas’ Fatah party dominate the current cabinet, and Odeh says it doesn’t look like things will be any different after Friday.
“The motivation for change was internal within Fatah. It had nothing to do with anything else; otherwise, there would have been some sort of national consultations. The crisis we are facing in our political system is far deeper than can be solved with a change of a few ministers here and there. It is the system recycling itself in order to swap out faces, nothing more. This is not a change of policy, it’s not a change of plans, it’s not a change of anything really,” adds Odeh.
One of the cabinet members who will retain his post is Foreign Minister Riad Malki. Malki, a political independent, has been the PA’s minister of foreign affairs since 2007. He is a former professor and head of the Civil Engineering Department at Birzeit University, near Ramallah in the West Bank. But critics of Malki retaining his post say there have been few foreign policy achievements worth mentioning that he can take credit for since he entered into office.
Munir al-Jaghoub, a spokesman for Fatah, told The Media Line that government changes happen in many countries around the world, and the current one’s “main objective is to develop ministerial work and strengthen it with new competencies.”
Jaghoub defended the decision to keep the foreign minister on board. “Few governments replace their foreign ministers every four years. There are foreign ministers who build relationships, and it is important for them to stay in office.”
Ramallah resident Marwan Khalaf is not pleased with the news of a possible change. Without elections and a new government, it is all “nonsense,” he told The Media Line.
“Based on what we are hearing, this is not a government of change, they are just changes to faces, but the same policies will remain,” he says. Khalaf says keeping foreign and finance ministers with no achievements to show is “shameful.”
The cabinet shakeup is an empty gesture and doesn’t carry with it real change. No one from Fatah’s main political rival, Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, will be appointed to any post in the upcoming change. “Anyone who thinks this is a real change is naïve; Abbas is trying to deceive everyone that he is making an effort for change,” a Hamas official told The Media Line. The official, who asked that his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, called the expected reshuffle “superficial.” “He ought to announce a date for elections; that’s what the people want,” he adds.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a statement that what is required is not a ministerial reshuffle, but rather a “change in the PA leadership’s approach and direction in terms of its continued betting on the American policy, which offers our people nothing but illusions.”
The statement from the PFLP continued to criticize the possible reshuffle saying, “Palestinian public opinion is wondering about the feasibility of these cosmetic measures while our national cause is going through one of its most dangerous stages in terms of the continuation of the Israeli aggression against our people and all aspects of life."
Odeh says the proposed new cabinet will have “the largest number of ministers, and the smallest number of women ministers, only two. We are in the midst of a financial crisis. That gives you an idea of the president's priorities.”