Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asked Mohammad Shtayeh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, to form the new Palestinian government on Sunday.
Efforts to form a new government were triggered after the last prime minister, Rami Al-Hamdallah, tendered his resignation and that of his unity government to Abbas in January, at the time dealing a blow to faltering reconciliation efforts with Hamas.
Tasking Shtayeh is seen as a step toward finding a successor to 83-year-old Abbas, given his uncertain health. Since a new prime minister would likely become the effective new president, the intention is to name someone from Fatah who represents the movement’s middle generation.
Hamdallah, a little-known academic, headed the national unity government formed in 2014 and led the West Bank-based Fatah’s reconciliation efforts with Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007.
The two groups signed a reconciliation deal two years ago which set in motion a plan for Abbas’s Palestinian Authority to resume governing in Gaza and take up control of the coastal enclave’s crossing points into Egypt and Israel.