Mahmoud Abbas has been the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 11 November 2004 and became President of the Palestinian National Authority (The West Bank) on 15 January 2005 on the Fatah ticket.
He was elected to serve until 9 January 2009, due to Palestinian Internal conflict he unilaterally extended his term for another year and continues in office even after a second extension expired. As a result of this, Fatah's main rival, Hamas (The Gaza Strip) announced that it would not recognise the extension or view Abbas as rightful president.
Allegations that officials of the Palestinian Authority, including Mahmoud Abbas have systematically embezzled public funds are frequent. This perceived corruption of the Fatah leadership is believed to have contributed to a convincing win by Hamas in the January 2006 parliamentary election. Fatah leaders have were accused of siphoning funds from ministry budgets, passing out patronage jobs, accepting favors and gifts from suppliers and contractors.
On July 10, 2012 Abbas and his sons were attacked, in the US Congress, for their alleged corruption. The debate was entitled Chronic Kleptocracy: Corruption Within the Palestinian Political Establishment. In his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Elliott Abrams stated that "Corruption is an insidious destroyer not only of Palestinian public finance but of faith in the entire political system. And it has certainly had an impact on potential donors. I can tell you from my own experience, as an American official seeking financial assistance for the PA from Gulf Arab governments, that I was often told “why should we give them money when their officials will just steal it?"
The conspicuous wealth of Abbas's own sons, Yasser and Tarek, has has been noted in Palestinian society since at least 2009, when Reuters first published a series of articles tying the sons to several business deals, including a few that had U.S. taxpayer support. In a Foreign Policy article author Jonathan Schanzer suggested four ways in which the Abbas family has become rich. They include monopolies on American made cigarettes sold in the territories; USAid funding; public works projects, such as road and school construction, on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and special preferences for retail enterprises.
Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, has been accused of hoarding a fortune of 100 million dollars and of owning palaces and property across the Middle East. Those accusations come from Mohammed Rashid, Arafat’s former financial advisor, who knows the ins and outs of Palestinian Authority finances like no one else, and whose own net worth is estimated at being around half a billion dollars.
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