Abbas Calls First Palestinian Elections in Twenty Years
President Mahmoud Abbas has issued a decree setting 28 November for Palestinian legislative elections, the first in two decades, to be held across the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. The last such vote, in 2006, delivered a shock victory for Hamas and was never repeated. The decree expands the legislative council from 132 seats to 200, lowers the candidacy age from 28 to 23, and requires at least a third of candidates on each list to be women. Abbas, who has ruled by decree for more than fifteen years, faces mounting international pressure to show his government’s legitimacy.
A date is not yet an election, and the obstacles are formidable, but the announcement itself answers a specific pressure: Western governments weighing recognition of a Palestinian state want an authority that can show a democratic mandate, and Abbas, in his ninetieth year and long accused of clinging to power, needs one to stay relevant to that conversation. Holding a vote across a Gaza shattered by war, an East Jerusalem that Israel controls, and a West Bank under occupation is a logistical and political challenge that has defeated every previous attempt — and Hamas’s participation, or exclusion, is the question that sank the last two efforts. The expansion to 200 seats and the quotas for women and younger candidates are aimed at renewing an institution frozen since 2006. Watch whether Hamas agrees to take part, whether Israel permits voting in East Jerusalem, and whether the November date survives contact with the realities on the ground.