Ismail Haniyeh's backers have already begun referring to him by the title he will soon assume when he forms the first ever Muslim fundamentalist-led government in the Palestinian territories. But he is not entirely comfortable with the designation prime minister.
'Don't call me that, these are hollow titles,' an acquaintance recalled being told this week by the Gaza Strip leader of the radical Hamas movement. 'We are under occupation. Call me brother, not prime minister,' Mr Haniyeh said.
A father of 13 children, he still lives in the beachfront Shati refugee camp in Gaza City where he was born in 1963. Unlike the outgoing prime minister, Ahmed Qorei - an unpopular transplant from Palestine Liberation Organisation headquarters in Tunis - Mr Haniyeh successfully styles himself a man of the people.
Politically, he is viewed as a pragmatist, in part because he tends to avoid the extremist pronouncements of other leaders in a movement that advocates Israel's destruction, and which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings against civilian and military targets.
He has spoken of a truce for 20 years with Israel if it pulls back to its pre-1967 borders and releases prisoners. And he has said the idea of eradicating Israel is not realistic.
'Does someone believe we can use guns to destroy a state that has F-16s and 200 nuclear warheads?' he recently asked in an interview with a Greek newspaper.