Abbas Postpones Palestinian Elections to September 2027
Mahmoud Abbas has decreed that legislative elections due on 28 November will instead be held alongside a presidential vote on 11 September 2027, the official Wafa agency reported. The PLO executive said conditions in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza were not conducive, noting that Israel had not let election materials or international observers into Gaza. Palestinians last elected a legislature in 2006.
Mr Abbas, 90, won the presidency in 2005 for a term that should have ended in 2009, and has ruled by decree since. Mustafa Barghouti told Al Jazeera: “At this moment, everything is concentrated in the hands of the executive authority.” A spokesman for Mohammed Dahlan’s faction, which had been building an unlikely alliance with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said Mr Abbas was “terrified” of it. The postponement was announced on the first anniversary of the Gaza ceasefire — a day on which, medical sources say, Israeli attacks killed at least eight people, including an eight-year-old girl. Gaza’s health ministry counts 1,481 killed since the truce began.