RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s call for elections has jeopardized his political future, forcing him to negotiate competent demands to commit to a friendlier US administration, repairing the rift with his militants Hamas rivals and maintain their indiscipline The Fatah movement does not break.
The presidential decree issued last month calling for the first Palestinian elections in 15 years emerged from negotiations with Hamas last year to bolster ranks in the face of unprecedented crises.
The Trump administration had cut off all aid and proposed a Middle East plan that would overwhelmingly favor Israel and allow it to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Last summer, a US-brokered settlement agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates suspended annexation, but left Palestinians increasingly isolated in the region.
So Abbas began talks with Hamas, the Islamic militant group that seized Gaza from its forces in 2007. These debates culminated in the presidential decree calling for legislative elections on May 22 and presidential elections on May 31. July.
It is unclear whether the election will be held. To do so will require an agreement between Abbas’s secular Fatah movement and Hamas, which have been bitterly divided for more than a decade despite multiple attempts at reconciliation. The two sides are scheduled to meet in Cairo this week.
The outcome of the talks will largely depend on Abbas, 85. He has spent decades searching for a Palestinian state without violence in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories confiscated by Israel in the 1967 war. Instead, he has come to rule an increasingly autocratic and unpopular Palestinian Authority, limited to parts of the West Bank. busy.
Reconciliation with Hamas and holding elections could strengthen its legitimacy and meet Western long-standing demands for responsibility. But even a limited victory by Hamas, which Israel and Western countries consider a terrorist group, could lead to international isolation and the loss of vital aid, as it did after Hamas won the last parliamentary elections in 2006.
In a briefing with Palestinian journalists, EU representative Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff welcomed the call for elections, but rejected repeated requests to explain how the EU would respond to 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 returned aid to the Palestinians and promised to take a more equitable approach, but the conflict in the East is likely to reduce the back seat to more urgent crises such as the coronavirus pandemic, and states are unlikely to United is committed to no Palestinian government that includes Hamas. Even an independent Hamas-backed government could pose problems for Western donors.
Elections could also precipitate the breakup of Abbas’s Fatah party. He has not prepared a successor and could face 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 2000 intifada or uprising.
“For Barghouti, running for president is the only way out of prison, or at least that’s what he thinks,” said Ali Jarbawi, a political science professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank.
Abbas could also have to fight Mohammed Dahlan, a Fatah rival who was convicted in absentia on corruption charges by a Palestinian court after being expelled by Abbas. Dahlan has a support base in his hometown of Gaza and powerful allies in the UAE, where he lives in exile.
“So far all that is being talked about is having a list (Fatah), but there are not likely to be two lists or even three,” said Jehad Harb, a Palestinian political analyst. “Or Barghouti can wait for the presidential election.”
Hamas would face its own election challenges, where voters could take responsibility for the economic devastation in Gaza, which has endured three wars with Israel and a paralyzing Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the militant group took power.
One idea for the rounds is to put together a joint list of Fatah and Hamas, but that would largely solve the outcome of the parliamentary elections before votes are cast, raising questions about their legitimacy.
Yara Hawari, a senior analyst at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian international think tank, says that anyway, if the election continues, there will be a “technical result” that will allow Fatah and Hamas to maintain the status quo.
The two Palestinian authorities have suppressed dissent through torture and arbitrary detention in areas under its control, and Israel routinely detains Palestinian activists and suppresses protests and boycott movements.
“It’s already been manipulated,” Hawari said. “If you have a totally politically suffocated society, this will be routinely punished by the political opposition, this is already being manipulated.”
Unresolved issues between Fatah and Hamas could also be used as pretexts to cancel or postpone elections.
The two sides have yet to agree on a tribunal to resolve electoral disputes and a mechanism to secure polling stations in Gaza, where Palestinian security forces have not been present since Hamas took power. The Palestinian Authority has also demanded that Israel allow the Palestinians in annexed Jerusalem to participate in the elections.
Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, said Abbas could cancel or postpone the election and blame Israel and Hamas.
“However, if Israel does not give him that pretext and Hamas does not give him that pretext, then he will be forced to shake hands and have to go to the polls,” he said.
Abbas, whose presidential term expired in 2009, is already facing a crisis of legitimacy, and Western donors may rethink their support if elections are eliminated. Abbas could also face a backlash from the Palestinian public.
“The process has its own dynamics and, although Abbas controls it, I think his calculation will have to be adjusted to the options he will have left, if he decides to unilaterally cancel the elections,” Shikaki said. “There will be a significant disagreement in Fatah about it.”