Yasser Arafat - Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini ياسر عرفات

In accordance with the terms of the Oslo agreement, Arafat was required to implement PLO authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

 He insisted that financial support was imperative to establishing this authority and needed it to secure the acceptance of the agreements by the Palestinians living in those areas. However, the Gulf Arab States — Arafat's usual source for financial backing — still refused to provide him and the PLO with any major donations because of his sympathy for Iraq during the Gulf War, in 1991. Ahmed Qurei — a key Fatah negotiator during the negotiations in Oslo — openly announced that the PLO was bankrupt.

In 1994, Arafat moved to Gaza City, one of the territories controlled by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) — the provisional entity created by the Oslo Accords.[65] Arafat became the President and Prime Minister of the PNA, the Commander of the PLA and the Speaker of the PLC. In July, after the PNA was declared the official government of the Palestinians, the Basic Laws of the Palestinian National Authority was published,[68] in three different versions by the PLO. Arafat proceeded with creating a structure for the PNA. He established an executive committee or cabinet composed of twenty members. Arafat also took the liberty to replace and assign mayors and city councils for major cities such as Gaza and Nablus. He began subordinating non-governmental organizations that dealt in education, health, and social affairs under his authority by replacing their elected leaders and directors with PNA officials loyal to him. He then appointed himself chairman of the Palestinian financial organization that was created by the World Bank to control most aid money towards helping the new Palestinian entity.

Arafat established a Palestinian police force, name the Preventive Security Service (PSS), that became active on May 13. It was mainly composed of PLA soldiers and foreign Palestinian volunteers. Arafat assigned Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub to head the organization. Amnesty International accused Arafat and the PNA leadership for failing to adequately investigate abuses by the PSS (including torture and unlawful killings) of political opponents and dissidents as well as the arrests of human rights activists. On July 24, 1995, Arafat's wife Suha gave birth to a daughter in Sorbonne, France. She was named Zahwa after Arafat's deceased mother.

Throughout November-December 1995, Arafat toured dozens of Palestinian cities and towns that were evacuated by Israeli forces including Jenin, Ramallah, al-Bireh, Nablus, Qalqilya and Tulkarm, declaring them "liberated". The PNA also gained control of the West Bank's postal service during this period. On January 20, 1996, Arafat was elected president of the PNA, with an overwhelming 88.2% majority (the only other candidate was charity organizer Samiha Khalil). However, because Hamas, the DFLP and other popular opposition movements chose to boycott the presidential elections, the choices were limited. Arafat's landslide victory guaranteed Fatah 51 of the 88 seats in the PLC. After Arafat was elected to the post of President of the PNA, he was often referred to as the Ra'is, (literally president in Arabic), although he spoke of himself as "the general". In 1997, the PLC accused the executive branch of the PNA of financial mismanagement causing the resignation of four members of Arafat's cabinet. Arafat refused to resign his post.