RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb. 23 -- The Palestinian Authority's prime minister won the agreement of lawmakers for a new cabinet Wednesday after three days of crisis over demands that it include more reformers and fewer Yasser Arafat loyalists.
In a meeting with members of the dominant Fatah movement, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia overcame obstacles that had threatened to complicate efforts to overhaul the corruption-plagued authority and force him to resign. After a four-hour meeting with Qureia and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, legislators said that Qureia had agreed to name more technocrats and that newcomers would make up more than half the cabinet.
"We have reached an agreement with brother Abu Ala," lawmaker Salah Tamari said, referring to Qureia by his informal name. "The majority of Fatah lawmakers will vote in favor of his cabinet."
Several lawmakers said that if no new obstacles arose, the Palestinian legislature would convene Thursday to ratify the 24-member cabinet.
Qureia's initial cabinet, presented Monday, contained only four new faces, prompting a near-rebellion by lawmakers who want to sweep away the corrupt vestiges of Arafat's era.
Aides to Qureia accused Abbas's allies of trying to force him out; the two Fatah leaders are longtime rivals. But Abbas intervened Wednesday to win critical support from dissident lawmakers to back Qureia's cabinet.
Palestinian officials said there were 17 new faces among the 24 ministers in Qureia's revamped lineup. Most are not lawmakers, as Fatah dissidents had demanded.
Nasser Yusef and Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas loyalists chosen to help him reform the Palestinian Authority and its security services, had agreed to join the new government, officials said.
Qureia managed to retain his original choice of longtime Arafat ally Nabil Shaath, tapped to become deputy prime minister and information minister. But he was forced to drop at least four other Arafat loyalists, among them cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, who had worked with Arafat for years.
Lawmakers also agreed that Arafat's nephew, former U.N. envoy Nasser Kidwa, would be named foreign minister because of his long experience in the field.
