GAZA (PIC)– Spokesman of the PA caretaker government Dr. Ghazi Hamad has affirmed that the PA legislature will convene Saturday to vote on the first PA unity government under PA premier-designate Ismail Haneyya amidst overwhelming Palestinian jubilance over the event.
Haneyya Hamad said is expected to table the political program of the unity government at an extraordinary session of the PLC in Gaza and Ramallah cities via the video-conference before the legislature endorses it.
He added that a number of Arab and foreign envoys are expected to attend the session which is according to him “a clear indication of Arab and international acceptance of the unity government”.
For his part acting PLC speaker Dr. Ahmad Bahar anticipated that the unity government will be endorsed “without any difficulty” attributing such “sure endorsement” to political harmony between the two biggest parliamentary blocs in the PLC Hamas and Fatah.
According to terms of the PA bylaws confidence could be obtained when one-half +1 of the PLC members voted favorably. The PLC comprises 132 seats more than a half for Hamas faction.
According to well-informed Palestinian sources Haneyya’s unity government will be sworn-in before PA chief Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza city after the voting; however cabinet members from the West Bank will take their oath on Sunday due to Israeli restriction on their travel to Gaza Strip the sources revealed.
“We are turning a new page and new future for the Palestinian people through the unity government” Haneyya said on Thursday after receiving names of Fatah and Hamas ministers form heads of the two factions’ parliamentary blocs in the PLC Azzam Al-Ahamd and Khalil Al-Hayya respectively.
Furthermore Haneyya highlighted the importance of releasing kidnapped PA ministers and PLC members including PLC speaker Aziz Dwaik among other members and the rest of Palestinian captives from Israeli jails.
More than 40 PLC members the bulk of them from Hamas were kidnapped last July at the hands of the IOF troops and retained in prisons in an apparent Israeli step to derail normal operation of the PA legislature which is dominated by Hamas.
A number of ministers in the outgoing PA government including education minister Dr. Nasser Al-Dein Al-Shaer retained their posts in the unity government while new names including Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi of the Palestinian Initiative among others came in.
