A new prime minister other than Dr. Salam Fayyad must be chosen

To begin with, I would like to note that this article of mine does not aim to assess Dr Salam Fayyad, neither as a programme nor as a person. Rather it aims to stress the necessity of strengthening the principle of the rotation of power and the changing of individuals, proceeding from the principle that says “remaining in government and administration for long periods restrains the beginnings of positive change and deprives any society of testing new experiences”.
A person's departure from their post, regardless of the level of performance, is a natural tradition in genuine democracies, and a person's departure from their post and their replacement does not necessarily mean that their performance was unsatisfactory; on the contrary, there are many experiences in history that have witnessed the departure of great figures who served their countries and peoples without their departure having any negative effect on their homelands; rather it left room for new blood and new expertise. And just as Dr Salam Fayyad's arrival was a new stage in Palestinian administrative and political work, his departure at this stage must simply be read within this context as well. It is enough in this regard to mention Charles de Gaulle, leader of the French struggle against the Nazi occupation, who resigned from his post after liberating France; and David Ben-Gurion, who led the Zionist movement and achieved its goals by laying the foundations of the Israeli state, who submitted his resignation after the establishment of the state and went to his farm in the Negev in order to encourage the Israelis to settle and cultivate the desert.

Dr Salam Fayyad, prime minister for four years, expresses a stage with many positives and negatives, and with appreciation for him and his role he must be replaced as prime minister for several reasons, the most important of them:

• Changing the prime minister will send a message to the international community to the effect that we possess the will for change, that “personalisation” has no place in the Palestinian political dictionary, and that if the movement of change in the Arab world is taking place with blood and fire, the opposite is happening in Palestine, represented by the peaceful and civilised rotation of power and of the main posts within it, without any manifestation of clinging to the post and the chair and remaining in it for a long period.

• An impression has formed among the international and local communities that Dr Fayyad's presence in the post of prime minister is a condition for the continuation of international funding, and this matter in itself is not accurate and harms the Palestinian people and their political system, which must in no case be linked to particular individuals.

• Change breathes life into national and administrative institutions, and gives hope of change to the Palestinian people, of whom young people make up more than half. It will also affirm the Palestinian people's belief in the benefits of the rotation of power and in strengthening the values of accountability and assessment, and that the homeland is greater than individuals however great they may be

Some may argue that changing Dr Salam Fayyad will lead to the cutting off of international funding to the Palestinian National Authority, and this is a great error into which many fall. International funding for the Palestinian National Authority is the product of the first donors' conference held in October 1993 in the American capital Washington with the participation of a number of international bodies, foremost among them the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. International funding came to enable the newborn “Palestinian Authority” to perform its role in strengthening the culture of peace among the Palestinians, as the conference's recommendations stipulated. The international community will never allow 1) the Authority to collapse, because it is an international demand, and 2) support for it to stop, so that it may be able to fulfil its function.

The functional division within the Authority between the institutions of the presidency and the government confirms that the Authority's political programme is the province of the institution of the presidency, and therefore the burden of meeting the requirements of the international community falls upon it so as to guarantee the continuation of its political and financial support, while the government's role remains confined to managing the daily and developmental affairs of Palestinian society. International funding for the Authority is therefore linked essentially to the extent to which it performs its function, that is, to its political programme, regardless of who leads it. The international community did not stop supporting the Authority in the time of the late President Arafat until it realised that the Palestinian Authority under his leadership was not abiding by what was politically expected of it — and this despite the many international reports that confirmed the existence of large-scale corruption in that period, yet international funding continued without hesitation until the contradiction emerged at the political level between the Palestinian Authority's orientations and the international community's expectations of it, whereupon the international community decided to be rid of Yasser Arafat while keeping the Palestinian Authority. The international community's talk about transparency and corruption is neither genuine nor sincere; rather it is to throw dust in the eyes and to cover other aims, and to be employed as a sword held, when needed, over the neck of the Authority and the Palestinian people. It is worth noting here that the international community itself has not uttered a word about any suspicion of corruption for four years, despite the many indications of its existence. The organised and enormous plundering of the wealth of the Arab world and the Third World, which has been exposed in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, could not have taken place without cover from Western society and its banks, which accepted and facilitated the smuggling of hundreds of billions from the South towards the North.

The revolutions that have swept and are still sweeping the Arab region have proved that change is an inescapable inevitability, for the rebelling peoples, weighed down by stagnation and the absence of change, can no longer bear the selfishness of monopolising posts and centres of power. The Arab revolutions have formed a dividing line between a past of the abuse and monopolisation of power and a present and future in which the rotation of power in a democratic and civilised manner becomes the essential characteristic of the Arab political system.

The Palestinian reality cannot in any way be separated from the general Arab reality, for the winds of change will blow towards Palestine sooner or later. For that reason, those in the centres of Palestinian decision-making must realise the importance and seriousness of what is happening around them, and must hasten to take steps that strengthen the principle of the rotation of powers and posts and put an end to the manifestations of monopolising posts and remaining in them.

This applies to everyone, whether the presidency or the premiership or the ministers themselves, or the negotiations department led by Saeb Erekat for 18 years, which has left it slack, flabby, undisciplined and ineffective; and in the Palestine Investment Fund and the Palestine Monetary Authority and all the official and semi-official institutions; and likewise the Palestinian political forces, which have grown very old and entered the stage of death years ago and whose leaders have been settled in their posts since even before Gaddafi came to power. What Gaddafi is doing in the way of hysterical killing of his people and mad plundering of his country's resources provides certain proof of the danger of a leader's attachment to the chair.

Good performance by a president or a director or a leader does not mean keeping him on and not changing him. Good performance is the duty and responsibility of every person in a decision-making position. Therefore we must change our concepts regarding how we deal with those above us among leaders and presidents, for these, like any employee of the state, receive their salaries and pensions in return for good performance, and they too are in a position of accountability, reckoning and change … For change is the constant principle and individuals are the variable elements.