Fatah said to back Hamas PM for parliament speaker

Fatah supports the nomination of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh for speaker of the Palestinian parliament, a Jordanian newspaper reported on Thursday, hours before the announcement of a new unity government.

According to Al-Arab Al-Yawm, Fatah would like to see Haniyeh head the Palestinian Legislative Council — which has not convened in seven years over the divide between the two political factions — “due to his public influence within Hamas.”

Hamas media reported on Thursday afternoon that a unity government would be announced later in the day, after the Islamic party agreed to keep Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki in his position. After conceding to keeping current PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in power, Hamas had initially rejected Maliki’s nomination.

Aziz Dweik, the current speaker of parliament for Hamas, told Al-Resalah daily on Thursday afternoon that the announcement of the new government by Abbas would follow an important speech by Haniyeh. Dweik said that Haniyeh has not been officially nominated for the position of parliament speaker, but welcomed the idea.

In the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, Hamas won 74 out of 132 seats, or 44.5 percent of the vote. Less than a year and a half later, Hamas forcibly took control of the Gaza Strip, purging the territory of Fatah members and terminating the short-lived cooperation with Ramallah.

The new unity government, comprising 15 technocrat ministers, is tasked exclusively with preparing the ground for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections to be held within six months.