RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for elections has jeopardized his political future and forced him to negotiate competing demands to deal with a kinder US administration, closing the gap with his militant Hamas rivals and his unruly Fatah movement breaks apart.
The presidential decree issued last month, calling for what would be the first Palestinian elections in 15 years, stemmed from negotiations started last year with Hamas to strengthen its ranks in the face of unprecedented crises.
The Trump administration had cut all aid and proposed a Middle East plan that overwhelmingly favored Israel and would have allowed it to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. A US-brokered normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates last summer has suspended annexation, but the Palestinians are increasingly isolated in the region.
So Abbas started talks with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that captured Gaza from its forces in 2007. Those discussions culminated in the presidential decree calling for parliamentary elections on May 22 and presidential elections on July 31.
It is far from clear that the elections will actually be held. This requires an agreement between the secular Fatah movement of Abbas and Hamas, which have been bitterly divided for over a decade despite multiple attempts at reconciliation. The two sides plan to meet in Cairo this week.
The outcome of the talks will largely depend on 85-year-old Abbas. For decades he has searched nonviolently for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Instead, he has come to rule an increasingly autocratic and unpopular Palestinian Authority confined to parts of the occupied West Bank.
Reconciliation with Hamas and holding elections could bolster its legitimacy and meet long-standing Western demands for accountability. But even a limited Hamas victory, considered a terrorist group by Israel and Western countries, could result in international isolation and the loss of vital aid – as it did after Hamas won its last parliamentary election in 2006.
In a briefing with Palestinian journalists, EU Representative Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff welcomed the call for elections, but declined repeated requests to explain how the EU would respond to a Hamas victory.
“Do you put the cart in front of the horse?” he said. “Why don’t we start with the horse.”
President Joe Biden has restored aid to the Palestinians and has vowed to take a more balanced approach, but the Middle East conflict is likely to take a far back seat to more pressing crises such as the coronavirus pandemic, and the US is unlikely to get along with it. will interfere. Palestinian government to which Hamas belongs. Even a Hamas-backed government of independents could pose problems for Western donors.
Elections could also hasten the breakup of Abbas’ Fatah party. He has not provided a successor and could take on a leadership challenge from Marwan Barghouti, a popular Fatah leader who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in the intifada or uprising of 2000.
“For Barghouti, becoming president is his only way out of prison, at least this is what he thinks,” said Ali Jarbawi, a professor of political science at Birzeit University in the West Bank.
Abbas may also face Mohammed Dahlan, a rival of Fatah who was convicted in absentia of corruption charges by a Palestinian court after he was expelled by Abbas. Dahlan has a support base in his native Gaza and powerful allies in the United Arab Emirates, where he lives in exile.
“So far there has only been talk of having one (Fatah) list, but it is not unlikely that there will be two or even three lists,” said Jehad Harb, a Palestinian political analyst. “Or Barghouti may be waiting for the presidential election.”
Hamas would face its own challenges in elections, where voters could hold it responsible for the economic devastation in Gaza, which has endured three wars with Israel and a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the militant group took power.
One idea going around is to compile a joint list of Fatah and Hamas, but that would largely control the outcome of the parliamentary election before any votes are cast, raising questions about its legitimacy.
Yara Hawari, senior analyst at Al-Shabaka, an international Palestinian think tank, says anyway, if the elections go ahead there will be a “technical outcome” that will enable Fatah and Hamas to maintain the status quo.
Both Palestinian authorities have suppressed dissent through torture and arbitrary arrests in the areas they control, and Israel routinely detains Palestinian activists and opposes protests and boycott movements.
“It is already set up,” said Hawari. “If you have a society that is completely stifled politically, it is routinely punished for political opposition – that’s already been rigged.”
The unresolved issues between Fatah and Hamas can also be used as a pretext for canceling or postponing elections.
The two sides need to agree on a court to settle electoral disputes and a mechanism to secure polling stations in Gaza, where Palestinian security forces have not been present since Hamas came to power. The Palestinian Authority has also demanded that Israel allow Palestinians in annexed East Jerusalem to participate in the elections.
Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, said Abbas can cancel or postpone the elections and blame Israel or Hamas.
“But if Israel doesn’t give him that pretext and Hamas doesn’t give him that pretext, then his hand will be forced and he will have to go to elections,” he said.
Abbas, whose presidential term expired in 2009, is already facing a crisis of legitimacy, and Western donors may reconsider their support if the election is dropped. Abbas could also face backlash from the Palestinian public.
“The process has a dynamic of its own, and while Abbas is checking it, I think his calculation will have to be adjusted to reflect the options he will be left with if he unilaterally decides to cancel elections,” said Shikaki. “There will be great disagreement within Fatah about this.”