Mahmoud Abbas
president of the Palestinian Authority since 2005
Mahmoud Abbas (Arabic: مَحْمُود عَبَّاس, romanized: Maḥmūd ʿAbbās; born 15 November 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen (Arabic: أَبُو مَازِن, ʾAbū Māzin), is a Palestinian politician who has been serving as the second president of Palestine and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) since 2005. He has also been the fourth chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since 2004. Abbas is also a member of the Fatah party and was elected the party's chairman in 2009.
Abbas was elected on 9 January 2005 to serve as President of the Palestinian National Authority until 15 January 2009, but extended his term until the next election (initially scheduled for 2010), citing the PLO constitution, and on 16 December 2009 was voted into office indefinitely by the PLO Central Council. As a result, Fatah's main rival, Hamas, initially announced that it would not recognize the extension or view Abbas as the rightful president. Nonetheless, Abbas is internationally recognized in his position(s) and Hamas and Fatah conducted numerous negotiations in the following years, leading to an agreement in April 2014 for a Unity Government (which lasted until October 2016) and to the recognition of his office by Hamas. Abbas was chosen to continue serving as president by the PLO Central Council on 23 November 2008.
Abbas served as the first prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from March to September 2003. Before being named prime minister, Abbas led the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department. Abbas has been subject to both criticism and controversy, having been accused of corruption, as well as distorting Jewish history and engaging in Holocaust trivialization.
The public source identifies “Mahmoud Abbas” as president of the Palestinian Authority since 2005. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mahmoud, Abbas and president.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q127998. VIAF identifies the subject as 118583035. The Library of Congress control number is n79066862. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 2005, 2004 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mahmoud Abbas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.