Fifteen years after its last elections, Palestine is set to head to the polls again in 2021. President Mahmoud Abbas announced new election dates on Friday, setting legislative polls for May 22 and a presidential poll scheduled for July 31.
Coming in days before the inauguration of US President-elect Joe Biden, whom Palestine sees as an opportunity to restore a good relationship with the US following an all-time low under President Donald Trump, the move seeks to legitimise the country’s political institutions.
According to a decree issued by Abbas’s office, the Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “The President instructed the election committee and all state apparatuses of the state to launch a democratic election process in all cities of the homeland,” a reference to the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
Palestine’s last parliamentary ballot took place in 2006 with the presidential poll happening a year earlier. The latter saw Abbas elected with 62 per cent support to replace the late Yasser Arafat.
Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the Palestinian Authority based in the occupied West Bank, and the Hamas Islamists, who hold power in Gaza, have, for years, expressed interest in taking Palestinians back to the polls. However, a long-standing rivalry between the two main Palestinian factions was seen as a leading factor stalling progress towards a new vote.
Last year, peace talks began between the two factions with a joint decision to hold elections in 2021 reached in September.
“In recent months, we have worked to overcome obstacles to reach this day,” Hamas said in a statement welcoming Abba’s election announcement, adding that it looked forwards to “free elections in which voters can express themselves without pressure and restrictions, in all fairness and transparency.”
There are still doubts ahead of the polls with a recent December survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showing that 52 per cent of Palestinians think elections held under present conditions would not be fair and free. A further breakdown of the survey shows that 76 per cent believe Fatah would not accept the result if Hamas won and 58 per cent saying that Hamas would reject a Fatah victory.
