Palestinian elections... postponement or cancellation?

Writer: Nabil Amr

Pursuant to the presidential decrees decided regarding the Palestinian elections, they were postponed twice, the first in May 2021, a few days before going to the polls, and the second in October 2026.

The first postponement was done under the pretext of Israel not agreeing to hold it in Jerusalem, as was the case in the 2006 elections, and the second postponement was done in accordance with the decree, and its pretext was Israeli obstacles.

However, the postponement in practice did not happen only twice, but it happened more than that, when twenty years had passed since the last legislative elections were not held, even though the circumstances were favorable, as Gaza was not destroyed, nor was the West Bank under double occupation, as is the case now.

Postponing the elections twice officially and by decrees, and refraining from making them periodic and regular for twenty years, led to a serious erosion of Palestinian legitimacy, a leadership and representative stagnation, in addition to the disappearance of the credibility of the Palestinian political class, both its loyal and opposition sides.

A bitter question prevails in the Palestinian street, saying: When Gaza was subjected to comprehensive destruction and the West Bank was subjected to a double occupation, the Palestinian factions did not unite, and the division remained, but they united to postpone the elections when they appeared to be a threat to their existence. This means that narrow factional interests took precedence over national interests, and this will further erode legitimacy and lack of credibility.

The Palestinian masses were enthusiastic about the general elections, and renewed their electoral register by ninety percent, considering the general elections a powerful tool of struggle, not only in confronting the occupation and its settlement and annexation programs, but in restoring the unity of the two wings of the nation, through an elected parliament that includes all the forces and segments of Palestinian society.

Replacing the factional consensuses and understandings with legislative and presidential elections sent an extremely negative message to the world, which considered the legislative elections an essential step towards renewing power, while postponing them represented a setback to the comprehensive reform process that the power had begun, and the legislative and presidential elections represented the most important democratic coronation in it.

On the balance of negative and positive, what was an effective recipe for ending division and restoring national unity, through consensus on elections, has resulted, as a result of postponement, additional factional and popular division. It made the general elections - after they were in the public’s awareness and aspirations a solution to basic dilemmas, including ending the division - a dilemma in and of itself.

When we carefully consider the obstacles that the authority used to postpone, and linked the holding of elections to their demise, a year is not enough, even if Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gvir and Katz are absent from the Israeli scene after the imminent elections, as there are no guarantees that the new government will make elections in Gaza, which is destroyed and occupied, possible, and in the West Bank and Jerusalem facilitating as they were in previous times.

The authorities and the factions have rushed to take the step of postponing and replacing a comprehensive dialogue led by the same forces that have been negotiating for twenty years to no avail with elections. The Authority and the factions had to continue working to hold the legislative elections on time, and if Israel exercised its obstructions in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, and it will inevitably do so, then it should bear the responsibility for preventing the Palestinians from exercising their intuitive right to elect their representatives, through the most advanced democratic means. In this case, Israel, which obstructed the elections, would be the one to be condemned.