Political Analysis: Why Mahmud ‘Abbas Postponed the Palestinian Elections

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By: Prof. Dr. Mohsen Mohammad Saleh.

Four factors, to varying degrees, appear to have prompted President Mahmud ‘Abbas to reverse his earlier decision to hold elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in the West Bank (WB) and Gaza Strip (GS) on 28/11/2026 and postpone them until 11/9/2027, when they are scheduled to coincide with the PA presidential election. These factors should be considered independently of the reasons given in his presidential decree:

First: Fear of the electoral outcome. This concern was heightened by Hamas’s decision to participate in the elections in alliance with other Palestinian factions, despite the obstacles that the official Fatah leadership within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) had placed in its path to prevent its participation. Moreover, opinion polls and assessments of public sentiment indicated that the official list backed by ‘Abbas and the PA leadership faced an almost certain defeat, with at least three other lists polling ahead of it. Such an outcome would have undermined the central purpose ‘Abbas sought to achieve through the elections: to renew his own legitimacy and that of Fatah’s official leadership. It would also have revived the 2006 scenario, which deprived that leadership of popular legitimacy. Since then, the leadership has maneuvered for two decades to retain its positions and prevent any genuine transfer of power reflecting the will of the Palestinian people.

Second: Widespread Palestinian backlash. The PLO leadership faced mounting anger from broad segments of Palestinian society over what was viewed as an overt attempt to predetermine the election results. Palestinian factions, prominent figures, institutions, and civil society organizations, both inside and outside Palestine, issued successive statements and staged protests against decisions and procedures they argued undermined electoral integrity and transparency, thereby depriving those selected for the Palestine National Council (PNC) of genuine representative legitimacy. One prominent initiative was the Emergency Palestinian National Forum, organized by the Palestinian National Authority for Popular Action (PNPA) and attended by about 350 figures from inside and outside Palestine, representing 30 countries. Moreover, numerous Palestinian diaspora communities issued statements rejecting the top-down approach the PLO leadership sought to impose through “prearranged electoral constituencies” designed to produce predetermined outcomes, as reportedly occurred in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. These reactions appear to have exceeded the PLO leadership’s expectations. Consequently, they placed significant pressure on the leadership and made it more difficult to continue disregarding the will of the Palestinian people.

Third: The growing likelihood of Israeli obstruction of the elections in the WB, including East Jerusalem, and the GS, coupled with the US administration’s indifference and its failure to pressure Israel to allow them to proceed.

Fourth: Conveying the desired message to Western countries pressing for elections, particularly France and, to varying degrees, the UK, Canada, Australia and EU member states. The PLO and PA leadership sought to demonstrate that they had taken the necessary procedural and organizational steps, while arguing that conditions on the ground made holding the elections difficult, if not impossible, primarily because of Israeli obstacles. Moreover, the anticipated results would align neither with the leadership’s preferences and expectations nor with the political orientations and positions of those Western countries.

Official Reasons:

The official reasons cited in the preamble to the presidential decree for postponing the elections were neither new nor unexpected. Indeed, every Palestinian was aware of these conditions before ‘Abbas began issuing decrees governing the electoral process.

Settlement expansion, settler violence and restrictions on movement in the WB had long been ongoing realities, well before the decrees were issued.

Similarly, the PA’s financial crisis and Israel’s withholding of its funds were longstanding problems.

The catastrophic conditions in the GS, the obstacles to holding elections there, and Israel’s refusal to withdraw and its obstruction of reconstruction likewise predated the decrees.

The need to allow time for national dialogue, safeguard the integrity and transparency of the electoral process, and consult with Palestinian factions… was also a longstanding, broadly shared demand among political factions and the public. These calls had been voiced repeatedly through every available channel, to the point of exhaustion. Yet the parties that stubbornly insisted on proceeding with elections unilaterally, on their own terms and according to their own procedures, were the PLO, PA and official Fatah leadership, not anyone else.

Why, then, did this leadership exercise what might be called “wisdom in retrospect”? And why did it take so long to acknowledge circumstances that every Palestinian already understood?!

A Tactical or Strategic Move:

An objective assessment of the PLO leadership’s conduct, or that of Fatah, reveals no substantive strategic shift in its political approach or its determination to remain in power. This pattern is evident in the long succession of dialogues, initiatives and agreements, including the 2007 Mecca Agreement, the 2011 Cairo Agreement, the 2012 Doha Agreement, the 2014 Shati Agreement, and the understandings reached in the summer of 2020. These were followed by arrangements for the PLC elections, which ‘Abbas canceled in late April 2021, shortly before they were scheduled to take place, after opinion polls indicated that Hamas was poised to win. The same pattern persisted with the Beijing Declaration of 23/7/2024, signed by Fatah, Hamas and 12 other Palestinian factions. The declaration called for a national consensus government agreed upon by the Palestinian factions and for the activation of a unified leadership framework to strengthen political partnership and shared decision-making. Nevertheless, ‘Abbas and Fatah’s leadership set these commitments aside, perpetuating a pattern of unilateral decision-making and treating dialogue as a tactical instrument.

The Cairo Dialogue:

Despite our commitment to advancing Palestinian consensus and addressing the challenges of the current phase, the initial rounds of the Cairo dialogue, which began on 14/10/2026 with the participation of Fatah, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine (PIJ), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), showed little sign of a substantive breakthrough. Fatah’s leadership continues to seek to impose conditions on the resistance factions that fundamentally contradict their nature and ideological commitments. These are the same conditions that Israel, the US and Western powers have failed to impose, most notably through the Oslo Accords and the concessions they entailed. Given Fatah’s longstanding and recurrent insistence on these conditions, the lessons of previous negotiations and agreements should inform future efforts. This is especially important in light of the right of all Palestinians to participate in the PLO and to freely and independently choose their leaders and representatives.

Fatah’s participation in the Cairo dialogue also appears to have served as a pretext for justifying the postponement of the elections. This interpretation is reinforced by the other factions’ constructive response to the delay and their willingness to engage in serious dialogue aimed at achieving Palestinian consensus and ensuring free and fair elections.

Expectations and Prospects:

The author does not expect the dialogue to yield a major breakthrough, whether in forming a national consensus government, genuinely activating a unified leadership framework, or securing credible guarantees for free and transparent elections inside and outside Palestine that include all segments of Palestinian society. Nevertheless, these goals remain essential and should continue to be pursued. Equally important is the need to agree on shared priorities for confronting the Zionist project and efforts to erase the Palestine issue. These priorities should include a common agenda on Jerusalem, the GS, settlement expansion and forced displacement, as well as renewed Palestinian grassroots and trade union activism. They should also encompass ending the PA leadership’s repression of civil liberties and halting media campaigns and other forms of political hostility.