The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas postponed this Saturday (the 10th) the legislative elections scheduled for next month to September 11, 2027, and called for a presidential election on the same date, blaming Israel and the security situation in the Palestinian territories for the postponement.
The decree cited “obstacles imposed by Israeli measures” and the need to establish political, security and on-the-ground conditions suitable for “free, fair and inclusive elections,” according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
The decree called on Palestinians in Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza to vote.
There were serious doubts that the Palestinian Authority’s vote would take place next month. The Palestinians have not held legislative or presidential elections since 2005-06, a period after which Abbas’s rival, the Islamist group Hamas, took control of Gaza, ousting its supporters.
Abbas has been governing by decree since his presidential term expired in 2009.
The Palestinian Authority held municipal elections in April in the West Bank and in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, the enclave’s only city that participated. The vote was the first election held in Gaza since 2006.
According to the decree, Israeli military attacks, expansion of settlements, settler violence and movement restrictions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, along with Israel’s ongoing withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, created challenges for the preparation and conduct of the elections in November this year.
In Gaza, the decree pointed to “exceptional security and humanitarian conditions,” the incomplete withdrawal of Israeli forces, the lack of progress in reconstruction and the failure to implement agreements for the deployment of international stabilization forces and police.
Israeli restrictions on access by election commission officials and international observers to Gaza and East Jerusalem also complicated the preparations, according to the decree.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on Abbas’s announcement, with officials unavailable to comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Israel typically prohibits the Palestinian Authority from holding elections in East Jerusalem, a territory it captured in the 1967 war and subsequently annexed, in a move that most countries do not recognize.
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Nidal Al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Eman Abouhassira in Dubai)
James Whitmore