Salam Fayyad

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Salam Fayyad (b. 1952) is a Palestinian politician, who was the Finance Minister of the Palestinian National Authority in the Fatah interim government from 2002 and is a highly respected reformer. His Ph.D. in economics is from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student of William A. Barnett and where he did early research on the American Divisia Monetary Aggregates, which he continued on the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. An economist and a former World Bank official who lived in the United States for twenty years, he was an official of the World Bank from 1987-1995 and subsequently became the International Monetary Fund representative to Palestine until 2001, before becoming Finance Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Upon resigning as Finance Minister, Fayyad ran as founder and leader of the new Third Way political party in the Palestinian legislative election of 2006 alongside Hanan Ashrawi. He is seen as pro-Western and was predicted to be offered the post of the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority by both Fatah, and as of January 26, 2006, also by the winner of the elections: the List of Change and Reform (Hamas). In response to the offer, Fayyad presented several conditions to becoming Prime Minister, including that Hamas would recognize Israel, which Hamas declined. Both Fayyad and Ashrawi represent their party, which won two seats, in the Legislative Council.

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• Hamas promises major changes in PLC: "Some Palestinians predicted that Hamas might ask former finance minister Salam Fayyad to head the new cabinet, so as to avoid a boycott by the international community." — Jerusalem Post, (January 27, 2006)