GAZA CITY, 18 March 2006 — The Palestinian Islamic group Hamas is set to take all key posts in a new Palestinian Cabinet in the face of continued failure of coalition talks with other factions, officials said yesterday.
“The majority of ministers will come from Hamas but the Cabinet will also include technocrats, independents and a Christian,” the spokesman of Hamas’ parliamentary bloc, Salah Al-Bardawil, told AFP. “Foreign affairs, interior, finance and education” portfolios will all go to Hamas, another party official told AFP, asking not to be identified.
Two-thirds of the ministers will be drawn from outside Parliament, said Hamas MP Mushir Al-Masri. The Hamas officials would neither confirm nor deny press reports that senior leaders Mahmud Al-Zahar and Said Siam would take the foreign affairs and interior portfolios.
The Islamist movement had wanted to form a broad national unity government but after nearly four weeks of coalition talks since its upset January election victory, no other faction has agreed to join it.
Hamas no longer believes the mainstream Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which it trounced in the elections, will agree to participate, Bardawil said. Three smaller parliamentary groups — Al-Badil (The Alternative), the Third Way and Independent Palestine — have given a definite no, Bardawil said.
Only the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose jailed leader Ahmed Saadat was seized by Israel in a controversial raid on a West bank prison Tuesday, is still considering its position, he added.
Senior PFLP official Jamil Al-Majdalawi confirmed that discussions were still going on within the movement’s leadership. “We have asked our brothers in Hamas to delay the announcement of the Cabinet lineup,” he told AFP.
Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh is due to submit both the lineup and the government program to Abbas in Gaza City today, Bardawil said. There was no immediate confirmation of the meeting from the Palestinian leader’s office.
Hamas hopes to present the lineup to Parliament for approval as early as Monday, Bardawil said. The leader of Fatah’s parliamentary bloc, Azzam Al-Ahmed, told AFP a new meeting with Hamas was scheduled for today in Gaza City. “It will be our final attempt to persuade Hamas to modify its government program. “If we fail, we will not take part in the cabinet and we will not give it our support in the (Palestinian) Legislative Council,” he warned.
