Fayyad's Role as New Palestinian Prime Minister Fraught with Risk

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Afaaf Abu al Kheedah thinks President George Bush's opinion of her new Palestinian prime minister as a "good fella" is an insult.

To her, Salam Fayyad isn't just "good," he's the best leader the Palestinians have ever had. She and her extended family agree that the University of Texas-trained economist is the savior her broken society needs.

"He's honest. He's smart. Any Palestinian with a brain who loves their homeland believes that he is the right man, the only man, who should be leading us," the 23-year-old medical technician said.

Last week Fayyad, a 54-year-old political independent, became the head of an emergency government that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed to quell the increasingly violent power struggle between his Fatah party and rival Hamas. Abbas installed the new government following bloody clashes in which Hamas Islamists routed Fatah loyalists from the Gaza Strip to gain complete control of the impoverished coastal territory.

The promotion caps Fayyad's 10-year mission to strengthen the governing Palestinian Authority, stamp out corruption and press for an independent state for the 3.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

His new role won applause from many quarters including the Bush White House, where the bespectacled, fatherly Palestinian enjoys a warm rapport with fellow Longhorn fans.

"Our hope is that President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad — who's a good fella — will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction," Bush said after an Oval Office meeting Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Fayyad's march up the leadership ladder began in 2001 when he was appointed by the late Yasser Arafat to be Palestinian finance minister. A political nobody without street credibility, he quickly made waves — and a reputation — by cleaning up the Palestinian administrative house. He straightened out the books and banking system, and he shamed those responsible for siphoning off public funds.

Employees from the finance ministry say Fayyad brings a sense of urgency, dedication and American sensibility — as well as American habits — to his work.

While his coworkers sip small thimble-size cups of sweet Arab coffee on their breaks, Fayyad drinks his diner-style, in a large mug. He likes to arrive early to business meetings, and aides say the Palestinian habit of sliding time schedules is one of his pet peeves.

For the younger employees at the finance ministry who also studied in the United States, Fayyad was a favorite boss with whom they could talk about everything from the olive trees owned by their grandfathers to the results of their favorite American football teams.

Fayyad keeps his Texas experience close to his heart. He famously broke the ice in his first meeting with Bush in 2003 by discussing the prospects of the UT Longhorns that season.

Supporters say Fayyad's biggest achievement as finance minister was computerizing government salary payments that until his arrival had been paid out in cash, with ministers themselves in charge of the money.

Aides remember him chain-smoking Winstons through meetings with belligerent officials, often Fatah-affiliated ministers, who opposed the change. But Fayyad would not allow the conference room doors to open until a combination of his bullfrog-voiced bullying and swirling cigarette smoke made them accept the reform.

Palestinian professionals like Abu al Kheedah, the hospital worker from Ramallah, discovered that they had a strong leader who didn't rule by the gun or the patronage rules of their old politicians.

"Mr. Fayyad is the one person that I would say has made a difference in our lives," said Abu al Kheedah. "Under him, we became a real government."

Fayyad cemented his reputation for integrity in 2006 by starting his own political party called The Third Way — an alternative to the Fatah-dominated authority still reeking of corruption allegations and the Islamic values espoused by Hamas.

The risk was great that his party wouldn't have the resources to pass the threshold needed for a seat in parliament and he would lose his job. But he refused a slot offered by Fatah on its party ticket.

In the end, his party won two seats in the vote that brought Hamas to power and diminished Fatah's role in government.

In an interview at the time, Fayyad said he viewed the election results as a protest vote against Fatah, not a show of support for Hamas' Islamic message. Still, he balked at joining the Hamas-led government, especially after the United States promised to boycott any ministers associated with it.

Fayyad's new job as prime minister is fraught with controversy, and it may end up tarnishing his reputation as well as threatening the governing structures that he's worked hard to support. He is assuming it at a time when Bush has lifted 16-month-old financial sanctions against the Palestinians that had been imposed when Hamas won the last parliamentary elections and gained control of the government. That has cleared the way for aid to flow to the Fatah-controlled West Bank, while food and other shortages are soon expected to descend on Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Thus, Fayyad is being thrust into factional battles that he has studiously tried to avoid in the past.

To appoint Fayyad as emergency prime minister, Abbas suspended the Palestinian Basic Law and dismissed the elected Hamas-led Cabinet. He said the move was the appropriate response to the "bloody coup" instigated by Hamas in Gaza.

Predictably, Hamas denounced Abbas' move as illegal. Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas-led authority, has refused to step down.

That has left Palestinians with two rival authorities — Fayyad's government in the West Bank that is financially flush with U.S. aid and Haniyeh's isolated one in Gaza — and many here are debating the legitimacy of each.

Mustafa Barghouti, the former Palestinian Authority's information minister and an independent politician like Fayyad, declined an invitation to serve in his friend's new government. To him, it presents an uncomfortable moral morass.

"I have a psychological problem with the emergency government. I cannot imagine suspending the law ... as a way to regain the rule of law," said Barghouti. "Fayyad is a decent man, that's for sure. But [for Abbas and Fayyad] to keep their control, they might have to break the rule of law again. That's not democracy. That's just not right."

It's unclear what Fayyad himself thinks of the constitutional issue. His aides refused requests for an interview. They said that Fayyad has always been guided by the rule of law and that his authority is entirely legal.

In brief public comments during his first days in office, Fayyad admitted that his government had much to accomplish to gain the trust of Palestinians. He said that his first priority would be order.

"I think we do have a serious credibility problem and that ... emanates from the fact that there is total breakdown here ... particularly in the security sphere," he said after his swearing-in ceremony.

Fayyad's commitment to transparency and accountability has helped boost him from political obscurity to the international spotlight.

Born outside the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm, Fayyad's family was always steeped in politics, but until recently it was a profession he had shunned.

Both his grandfather and father served in the Jordanian parliament, the body that ruled over Palestinian affairs in the area until 1967, when Israel won control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the Arab-Israeli war.

At that point his family moved away so they could build lives not possible under Israeli rule.

Fayyad went to Beirut for an undergraduate degree in chemistry.

Later, a friend at the University of Texas helped Fayyad enroll in night school in Austin. There Fayyad attended St. Edward's University and received a degree in business administration. He then spent five more years at UT, completing a Ph.D. in economics.

By the mid-1990s, after a stint as a staffer at the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, Fayyad was employed at the World Bank in Washington D.C. when the call to help his people build the dream of statehood became too strong to ignore.

He moved to Jerusalem in 1996 as the International Monetary Fund official in charge of Palestinian economic development. He and his wife, a Palestinian from a well-known Jerusalem family, and three children happily made the city their home.

Five years later, the prospect of an independent state was slipping away. The Palestinian Authority, the experiment of Palestinian self-rule, was crumbling under the weight of cronyism and corruption. It was at this time that Fayyad decided to intervene more directly in the affairs of his nation.

Unlike his political ally Abbas, Fayyad has rarely spoken out publicly against Hamas. Aides say that this is because he sees his primary role as leveraging his Washington connections to mitigate financial and military hardships on Palestinians, not taking sides in what in essence is a partisan power struggle.

That position could now be tested as any political statement from Hamas out of Gaza now becomes a direct challenge to his own power.

Palestinian analysts say that for Fayyad to succeed, he must find a way to continue making Gazans feel like they are part of Palestinian society even as the Americans and Israelis keep the sanctions against Hamas and funnel money to him and the West Bank.

Palestinians interviewed in Ramallah say if Fayyad allows the West Bank to flourish and Gaza to suffer, then he will become no better than Fatah.

"It's true Fayyad has so far done nothing but good for us, but now he is playing a dangerous game," said Saed al Qadi, a 41-year-old teacher employed by the education ministry who is wary about the emergency government. "He can't divide and rule Palestinians. That's what Fatah has tried to do. That's what Israel and America have tried to do. He has to show us that he's not like them."