RAMALLAH (Middle East Eye) – A recent lobbying effort by the wife of a senior Fatah leader to release him from the Zionist regime’s jail has reignited the debate about who will succeed Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which rules Palestine.
Fadwa Barghouti, wife of Marwan Barghouti, has recently met officials from Jordan, Egypt, the Arab League, Russia, the U.S. and Europe.
She is campaigning for the release of her husband, who has been serving a life sentence since 2002 in an Israeli prison over his involvement in armed resistance during the Second Intifada.
Marwan Barghouti, who ran in the now-scrapped 2021 elections, is one of the most popular Palestinian figures, and recent polls predict he would win in any electoral race.
Some reports say Fadwa’s lobbying effort is aimed not just at releasing her husband but also at gathering support for him to become Abbas’s successor.
Sources close to the family told Middle East Eye that the only purpose of the campaign is to get Marwan out of jail.
But her efforts have coincided with leaks to Palestinian media outlets saying that Abbas has withdrawn his support for the man who was, at least until recently, widely expected to be the next Palestinian president, Hussein al-Sheikh.
The reports, which MEE could not independently verify, cite Fatah members as saying that Barghouti’s name has been brought up as a potential successor instead.
Experts say that, despite his popularity with the public, Barghouti still faces significant obstacles to becoming the next Palestinian president, not least his imprisonment and the rivalry he faces within Fatah.
Because of this, Sheikh is still viewed as the top candidate, although many Palestinians have reservations about his credentials.
Other potential successors to Abbas include Majed Faraj, the chief of Palestinian intelligence; Mahmoud al-Aloul, a senior Fatah leader; and Mohammed Dahlan, a UAE-based former Fatah senior leader.
In the past few years, Sheikh has developed a reputation as being one of two key confidantes to Abbas.
Both he and Faraj are seen as the president’s gatekeepers and integral members of his tight-knit inner circle.
In 2022, Abbas appointed Sheikh as the secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) executive committee, the second-top position in the organisation.
This decision was seen then as a strategic move to position the 62-year-old as successor.
Historically, numerous leaders within Fatah have aspired to this role, which involves serving as a stand-in for the president in his absence.