Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday postponed legislative elections by nearly a year, decreeing that parliamentary and presidential votes be held together on 11 September 2027. The legislative polls had been scheduled for 28 November this year, with a presidential vote expected in early 2027. The announcement was carried by Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency.
Abbas's office blamed "obstacles imposed by Israeli measures" as well as the need to create suitable political, security and on-the-ground conditions for free, fair and inclusive elections. Earlier this month, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) said Israel had refused to let Palestinian election officials into east Jerusalem or Gaza. Wafa later reported that the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation had approved the delay, saying conditions had "changed fundamentally" since the elections were announced. Hamas and Islamic Jihad reportedly backed the postponement during talks in Cairo, and Fatah and Hamas had agreed to hold a "national dialogue" before any vote.
Reactions were sharply divided. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Abbas a day earlier of "fooling the international community" by cancelling promised elections, and called the PA corrupt. Among Palestinians, the mood was one of frustration and resignation. Abu Amin, a displaced man in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, asked how long elections would keep being put off, even as he acknowledged the difficulties caused by war and destruction. Mohammed Dahlan, a Gaza-born leader of a Fatah splinter group who lives in the United Arab Emirates, called the delay a "crime against democracy". Esmat Mansour, a journalist and former official of the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the only explanation was fear of elections.
The background explains the weight of the decision. Palestinians last voted for a legislature in 2006, when Hamas, an Islamist movement, defeated Fatah, the secular nationalist party that dominates the PA. The ensuing rift led to factional fighting, and Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, splitting Palestinian governance between Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Legislative Council, the PA's parliament, has not met since 2007. Abbas, now 90, won the last presidential election in 2005; his term should have ended in 2009, and he has ruled by decree since. Planned elections in 2021 were also cancelled.
The delay matters internationally because elections are among the reforms the PA's foreign partners, including the European Union, have demanded. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said this week that a vote would offer "a long-overdue opportunity to renew the legitimacy of Palestinian institutions", and EU Mediterranean Commissioner Dubravka Šuica had welcomed the plan to vote this year. The postponement further weakens the legitimacy of Palestinian leadership and complicates matters for partners, notably France, that had tied diplomatic support to a swift return to the ballot box.