February 14th, 2011 by Alec

As Egyptian inspired protests have spread across the Arab world, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced on Monday the dissolution of his 24 member cabinet.  A cabinet reshuffle has been a goal of Fayyad for some time, as only 16 of the 24 portfolios had been filled, with the cabinet largely being viewed as “dysfunctional.”  The posts are to be filled within six weeks. This announcement comes ahead of presidential elections scheduled to be held by September.  Presidential elections had been put on permanent hold since 2009, when current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s term was to have ended, in order to avoid a power vacuum after Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Meanwhile, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has resigned as a result of revelations from the “Palestine Papers” released by Al-Jazeera and The Guardian.   Erekat said he hoped his stepping down would set a model of transparency in Palestinian governance.  He went on to accuse Qatar, the primary financier of Al-Jazeera and home to the network’s headquarters, of investing in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

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