Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. AFP
The decree stipulates that the presidency's responsibilities will be temporarily assumed by the head of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the parliament that represents all Palestinians inside and outside the Palestinian territories, if the office of the authority's president becomes vacant while the Palestinian Legislative Council is not in session.
Rawhi Fattouh is the current head of the PNC.
According to the decree, this arrangement would last for a maximum of 90 days, during which direct and free elections must be held to choose a new president by Palestinian election law.
If elections cannot be held within the specified timeframe due to exceptional circumstances, the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the historic organization that embodies the Palestinian cause, would be authorized to extend the interim period once.
The Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, was formed after Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accord in 1993 as the governing body in the occupied territories, pending further talks on the future of establishing a permanent peace agreement between the two sides.
Abbas assumed the helm at the head of the PLO and the office of president of the Palestinian Authority after the death of its historic founder and leader, Yasser Arafat, in 2004.
Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, was born in Safad in the Galilee in 1935 before his family fled historic Palestine to Syria during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba.
Active in resistance politics since the 1950s, Abbas was a founding member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the historic organization embodying the Palestinian cause.
Over the past two decades, as head of the PA, Abbas has championed the cause of securing international recognition for the State of Palestine in the United Nations as a step toward realizing the dream of establishing an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as it capital.
In 2005, in a setback, the PA lost effective control of the Gaza Strip to its competitor, Hamas, amid a power struggle in the aftermath of national elections.
His project has faced growing challenges as Tel Aviv forges ahead with constructing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and more recently threats to reoccupy Gaza amid a genocidal war on the strip, thus making the dream of a Palestinian state more difficult to realize.
Morover, Israel has increased pressures on the PA with more than two years of a deadly crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, which escalated exponentially after 7 October 2023.
In his decree, Abbas highlighted the importance of safeguarding Palestine's political system and territorial integrity during what he described as a critical period in the nation's history.
He cited ongoing political and economic crises, compounded by what he termed an "existential threat" to the Palestinian people caused by the genocidal war of Israeli occupation, as the motivation for issuing the decree.
"The dignity of the nation reflects the dignity of every individual, who forms the cornerstone of building a homeland," Abbas stated.
He underscored the need to uphold the rule of law, pluralistic democracy, equality, and social justice as pillars of governance.
The president framed the decree as necessary to maintain stability amid numerous challenges, expressing hope that it would help the nation navigate its current crises while ensuring the continuity of governance and preserving constitutional integrity.
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