Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he was working to establish the culture of institutions, instead of the individual-based system.
“If the institution is working, all things will be fine and there will be no need to worry” he said during a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee following his exit from hospital.
“If we believe in our institutions, we will be able to continue our work, and this is what happened over the past few days,” Abbas added.
“We have noticed that the PLO, the Fatah movement and others are working as a powerful smooth machine, which reassures us that things are going well,” he stressed, adding: “When I entered the hospital for 11 days, the institution was still operating, the country was not harmed. We were able to build the culture of the institution, not the culture of the individual.”
Abbas’ comments appeared to be a response to rumors linked to his succession in power. The opponents of Abbas - during the latter’s hospital stay - issued many rumors about his health condition and his possible successor, taking advantage of the absence of a well-known replacement, amid a wide political and legal dispute between Fatah and Hamas over the crippled legislative council, which is supposed to resolve any problem resulting from a presidential vacuum.
Under Palestinian Basic Law, the president of the Palestinian Legislative Council shall assume the presidency of the Authority temporarily for a period not exceeding 60 days until the holding of presidential and legislative elections.
According to Hamas, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council is Abdel Aziz Dweik - a Hamas member - who won the post after Hamas achieved victory in the 2006 legislative elections and who is supposed to replace Abbas. However, Fatah considers the entire council to be dysfunctional and does not acknowledge its presidency.
