On May 22, the Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to hold elections for its legislative council (PLC); these are to be followed by presidential elections on July 31 and then, a month later, elections for the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the quasi-parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The last PA elections, held in 2006, led to a Hamas victory in the legislative council, a brief civil war, and the Islamists group’s takeover in Gaza. While it remains possible that the current PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, might find an excuse to cancel the elections, he may have painted himself into a corner. Elliott Abrams believes it likely that Hamas will do very well in the upcoming elections, and fears a repeat of 2006:
From the U.S., Israeli, or Jordanian point of view, these 2021 elections are a nightmare. For Jordan, still in the throes of Hashemite family clashes, a new Hamas presence in the PLC and more importantly in the West Bank would mean nothing but trouble. The real fear in Amman is that Hamas would increase its influence on Jordanian Islamists, enticing them into tougher anti-Israel and anti-Hashemite stands or even into the use of violence. For Israel, which deals with the PA every day on issues from vaccinations to anti-terrorist cooperation, a Hamas presence in the PA and in the West Bank would similarly make an already extremely difficult modus vivendi far harder to maintain. For Washington, the Biden administration’s efforts to rebuild relations with the PA would face an impossible burden if the PA and PLC contain an officially designated terrorist group.
But what if the PLC elections are in fact canceled? This decision lies solely in Abbas’s hands, and it is likely that today he feels trapped by bad choices. While such an outcome avoids the many problems noted here, it deepens the crisis of legitimacy for Abbas, who would still be ruling by decree after fourteen years. Canceling the presidential and PNC elections as well make that problem even worse, leaving Palestinians with no institutional political life, an eighty-six-year-old president-for-life, and no way to address the Fatah-Hamas split either now or when Abbas dies.
The fundamental problem remains what it was in 2006. Neither of the two Palestinian entities, the West Bank and Gaza, is democratically governed, and Gaza is ruled by a terrorist organization that has shown no sign of being willing to abandon violence. These elections may come off, but they will have moved the Palestinian people no closer to being governed peacefully by democratic political parties, nor will they have reinvigorated the “peace process.” Indeed, if Hamas comes to take an official role in the West Bank and in the PLO, the establishment of a Palestinian state will—for better or for worse—be even less realistic than it appears now.
As in Lebanon due to the role of Hizballah, Palestinians face what is for now an impossible task: coping with an armed, aggressive terrorist group that seeks to use political mechanisms to enhance its power but will not disarm and submit itself to democratic control. Elections cannot solve that problem. Elections that enlarge the role of terrorist groups without demanding that they abandon armed struggle simply make it worse.
Read more on Fathom: https://fathomjournal.org/palestinian-elections-as-in-2006-a-dangerous-idea/