JERUSALEM // Mohammad Dahlan, once widely regarded as the heir apparent to Yasser Arafat as Palestinian president, has been barred from Fatah Central Committee meetings while an investigation looks into allegations of "subversion".
The committee issued a statement on Tuesday saying it had decided "unanimously to suspend Mohammed Dahlan from its meetings until the commission of inquiry finishes its work".
The move, made during a gathering of the committee in Ramallah, appeared to confirm months of speculation that Mr Dahlan, 49, had fallen out with Fatah and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president.
While Palestinian officials refused to specify the nature of the inquiry, it is thought that the committee will investigate the source of Mr Dahlan's considerable wealth and his alleged efforts to amass power within Fatah.
An anonymous committee member said that the investigation would look into Mr Dahlan's "subversion against president Abbas and members of the committee".
For months, rumours have swirled that he has been criticising Mr Abbas and his family's business dealings, and attempting to pressure the Palestinian leader from power.
In an unconfirmed report earlier this month, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Mr Dahlan, who has enjoyed enormous popularity among younger Fatah members, also secretly sought to form his own militia.
Adnan Domeiri, the spokesman for the PA's security forces, would not confirm this account. "I haven't any information about this," he said.
But officials close to Mr Dahlan are reported to have been arrested in recent weeks. Yusef Issa Yakub, an ally of Mr Dahlan who was the PA's deputy head of the authority's preventive security force, was recently removed from his position.
Palestinian observers have suspected the alleged activities as Mr Dahlan's jockeying for more power at a time when stalled peace negotiations with Israel have tested the leadership of Mr Abbas and the PA.
The Palestinian president reportedly stripped him of his bodyguards recently and threatened him with imprisonment. Earlier this month, the PA shut down a television station connected with Mr Dahlan, reportedly over a failure to pay licensing fees.
Following committee's meeting in Ramallah - presided over by Mr Abbas - Mr Dahlan was also stripped of his title as Fatah's media commissioner and removed from the group's information and culture commission.
"He's ambitious and he sought to create his own centre of power within Fatah, and there was a feeling of threat among Abbas and other leaders in the group," said George Giacaman, a Palestinian analyst and co-founder of the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy.
"He openly criticised them, and people thought this was too much. Some felt it could be an insurrection in the making within Fatah."
Mr Dahlan denied the allegations, calling them "false and malicious information".
Even so, the punishments would seem to have been another blow to the ambitions of a man who was born into desperate poverty in the Gaza Strip's Khan Younis refugee camp, the youngest of six children, and rose to become the most powerful man in Gaza and easily one of its richest, as well as ingratiating himself to the United States.
Yet while receiving a political boost last year from his election to the central committee, Mr Dahlan has never been able to shake his reputation as the man who lost Gaza to Hamas in 2007, when he led a failed coup, reportedly backed by the CIA, against the Hamas-led government there.
His forces suffered a humiliating defeat during the street fighting and his house in Gaza City was burnt to the ground by members of the Islamist movement, who despised him for the repressive tactics he and his forces had used against them while in power.
Still, while receiving yet another political blow this week, it is not certain whether his political career has ended. "It depends how far they take it," Mr Giacaman said of the central committee's investigation.
"It could be a disciplinary measure designed to have him toe the line, or they could take it a step further and expel him, though I doubt they'd take it so far. I think it's more about clipping his wings."
hnaylor@thenational.ae
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
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Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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From Conquest to Deportation
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