Mr Abbas, 67, one of the PLO’s old guard, is the candidate favoured by Mr Arafat’s dominant Fatah faction over outsiders such as Salam Fayyad, the internationally respected Finance Minister.

Mr Abbas is a veteran associate of Mr Arafat, but he has little popular support of his own. He is unlikely to emerge as a serious leadership rival to the beleaguered Palestinian leader, with whom the United States and Israel refuse to deal.

Mr Abbas said that he would wait to see what powers the job held before deciding whether to accept it. “I will respond positively or negatively after I know what powers the Prime Minister will have,” he said.

Mr Arafat, who has been deeply reluctant to appoint a prime minister, has come under pressure from the international community to make genuine reforms to kick-start the peace process.

Mr Abbas was born in Safad in 1935 and left Palestine for Syria in 1948 upon the creation of Israel. He studied in Egypt before receiving a PhD in Israeli Studies at Moscow University.

In 1957 he moved to Qatar, where he began organising Palestinian nationalists and became a founding member of Fatah. Later he was appointed to the PLO Executive Committee and was one of four PLO officials who carried out secret talks with Israeli officials in Norway in 1993 that led to the Olso peace accords.

Israel has said that it will relax restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza to allow the central council to meet today and the Palestinian parliament to approve or reject Mr Arafat’s choice on Monday.

There is widespread Palestinian opposition to the appointment of a prime minister, a position seen as being imposed by the outside world. “The idea of appointing a prime minister is being pushed by Israel to avoid negotiating with Arafat,” Salah na-Amwh said. “Any agreement reached will have to be approved by Arafat. Trying to cut him out is a total waste of time.”

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