On 10 October, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas predictably announced the postponement of the legislative elections, which had been set for 28 November 2026. The vote has been rescheduled for 11 September 2027, alongside the Palestinian presidential election. For now, the decision ends the prospect that, for the first time in 20 years, the Palestinian people could choose their national representatives. The delay raises a question: who would the election have served, and who stands to gain from its result? The current climate in Palestine makes elections necessary but not sufficient. Several actors with a stake in the Palestinian political process, including the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Israel, and the USA, have little reason to want elections, either legislative or presidential.
What is an election for?
As well as enabling better governance, an election in Palestine would serve other purposes: accountability, succession, and external legitimacy. Voting enables citizens to hold their leaders accountable, crucial in Palestine where trust in these leaders has diminished.
A vote would hopefully resolve the contested issue of presidential succession. President Abbas is unlikely to stand. Marwan Barghouti, Mohammed Dahlan, Yasser Abbas, and Hussein Al-Sheikh all have varying prospects of leading the PLO and / or taking the presidency. Holding a vote would democratically determine Abbas’s succession, facilitating a smooth transition and minimising the risk of a leadership vacuum. The alternative is that an acting leader is appointed on the demise of the ageing Abu Mazen, and becomes the new President of Palestine by default.
A democratic election in Palestine should mean the people are represented on an international stage. This would help the peace process to progress as Palestinians could speak for themselves.
Unfortunately, in the current climate, an election in Palestine would only partially fulfil its democratic purpose. Whether an election can deliver any of these aims depends on who controls the process: Fatah’s leadership, Israel, and the United States and its international partners.
The Players: Incentives and Levers
PLO and Fatah:
With Abbas as their leader, Fatah (the dominant faction of the PLO and PA) was expected to lose power in the November elections as dissent towards the president has grown fiercely since 2006. Because a defeat was plausible, Fatah’s leadership has a motive to postpone elections to keep Abbas in power. In 2021, Abbas postponed elections after Fatah split into three rival lists and faced a likely loss to Hamas. Similar reasoning is echoed in the 2026 postponement. Esmat Mansour, a former official of the DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine), directly blamed the postponement on Abbas’s ‘fear of elections’. Similarly, Dahlan, leader of the breakaway pro-reform Fatah faction, criticised the postponement as an ‘attack on democracy’. Israel has also blamed the PA’s ‘corrupt’ leadership for the delay. These interpretations of why elections were delayed follow historical precedent. Based on their unlikely re-election and perceived corruption, Fatah has reason to postpone elections.
The recent postponement followed a meeting of Palestinian factions in Cairo on 8 October 2026, where Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine recommended delaying the legislative elections. They cited the need for comprehensive national dialogue, Palestinian unity, and efforts to overcome Israel’s restrictions and security and logistical obstacles, particularly in Gaza and East Jerusalem. Although the decision was collective, it still delays any process that depends on a clearly representative Palestinian leadership.
Even if elections were held, Fatah holds the power to manipulate the outcome by legally controlling who stands. Since at least 2021, the Central Elections Commission has required $20,000 and 3,000 signatures per electoral list. Compared to other states, this cost is high but not extraordinary. Relative to local incomes, however, the cost is almost impossible to meet. Mustafa Barghouti, leader of an independent party, publicly warned that these restrictions could ‘undermine the democratic right to stand for election and vote’.
The PLO has both incentive to postpone an election and legal leverage to manipulate one. Independents and rivals face barriers, limiting competition to Fatah and therefore preventing the Palestinian people gaining authentic representation through a vote.
Israel:
Israel’s government opposes Palestinian statehood and is wary of a stronger Hamas, so it has little reason to welcome a vote. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, ‘There will be no Palestinian state,’ in response to the wave of Western recognition last year. In 2021, when Hamas was expected to outperform the PLO, Israel and Europe were thought to welcome postponement.
Furthermore, Israel can leverage practical restrictions on voting through its occupation of Palestine. The Israel-backed settler violence across the West Bank, which has recently reached its highest levels, makes it an unsafe environment for Palestinians to vote. More extremely, the decimation of most infrastructure and permanent homes in Gaza since 2023 has made it almost impossible to stand and to vote. Palestinians in Gaza are likely focused completely on surviving, and with over 1.9 million displaced and 60% with no home, the logistical challenges of legal registration are barriers to an election.
By controlling movement, Israel also controls who can campaign and vote. In the elections originally set for November, election officials were prevented from entering East Jerusalem and Gaza, meaning if they were held, they would only represent a fraction of the Palestinian population. Movement between the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem is currently next to impossible, limiting freedom of movement for candidates. This control mirrors the 2006 elections, where Israel controlled who was able to run in East Jerusalem: candidates from several factions were detained while campaigning there.
These practical restraints impact the election, as only part of the population can vote and campaign freely. Israel can shape the outcome of a vote and therefore who represents the Palestinian people.
US and international players:
The US, European and Arab states can push for elections, but they also hold an effective veto, since their recognition decides whether the result is treated as legitimate. In 2006 the US pushed for elections, and the vote held on 25 January was widely judged ‘free and fair’ by international observers. After Hamas’s win, the Middle East Quartet (US, Russia, EU, and UN) threatened aid suspension and economic sanctions on Palestine if Hamas did not meet three conditions: renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements. Although the vote was democratic, its result was not accepted internationally, which showed that an election’s value depends on outside recognition as well as the ballot.
More recently, the Board of Peace, chaired by President Trump, has been given authority over Gaza’s transition under UN Security Council Resolution 2803. As a result, there is currently no institutional way for Gazans to express their democratic right to vote, as they are under the governance of an international body of which they are a very limited part. As announced in the Gaza Peace Plan, the Board will hand over governance of Gaza to the PA once it ‘has completed its reform program’. President Abbas said this step was completed in September, although the US has not acknowledged this. The international community has established levers to undermine the outcome of an election.
Do elections benefit Palestinians?
The question is whether a flawed vote is better than none. A vote shaped by these actors risks lending legitimacy to a process Palestinians do not control. No vote at all leaves an ageing leadership in place, with no fresh mandate and no outlet for dissent.
Together, the above three players hold ultimate power over the electoral process in Palestine. Each of these actors has shaped, or can shape, how a vote is run or whether its result is accepted. Even if Palestinians carry out democratic elections to the best of their ability, they are still subject to international conditions that deem the will of the people acceptable or unacceptable. Holding elections risks legitimising a flawed process and repeating the events of 2006.
Nevertheless, presidential elections should go ahead even if they only achieve the bare minimum: a path for succession and some accountability to part of the population. Delay carries its own costs because without a vote, Palestinians have no way to replace an ageing leadership, making the system even more fragile. Israel’s control over how much of the population is able to vote, and the risk that outsiders will not engage with the result, are significant barriers to democracy. However, Palestinians can maximise the outcome of elections by ensuring the rules are open to independents. The ultimate aim would be to somehow limit Israeli and international manipulation of an election. However, this is unrealistic, and a somewhat democratic presidential election would be extremely valuable.
Image above from Flickr: Mahmoud Abbas – World Economic Forum on the Middle East Dead Sea Jordan 2007 by World Economic Forum, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
