Palestinians have been left angry by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to again postpone the long-delayed Palestinian Legislative Council elections.
Candidates who had planned to run told The Jerusalem Post and posted publicly that the two-decade absence of legislative elections shows the PA is putting the “status quo ahead of the public interest.”
Abbas announced on Saturday that the elections, originally scheduled for November 28, would be postponed until September 11, 2027, citing Israeli-imposed obstacles and arguing that Palestinian factions had agreed there was no choice but to delay the vote.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denied the PA’s accusations, calling them “yet another ridiculous lie designed to evade responsibility and accountability.”
Though Dr. Nabil Kukali, founder and president of the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, told the Post last week that the Palestinian majority would likely understand a postponement if elections could not take place in east Jerusalem and Gaza, provided the public saw a genuine desire to hold them, New Path leader Samer Sinijlawi said the decision to postpone had been made as part of a campaign by Palestinian Vice-President Hussein al-Sheikh and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Deputy Secretary-General Jamil Mezher.
Reports that Sheikh sought to cancel the elections have circulated for months, with Yoni Ben-Menachem, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, saying he had been told that the vice-president had explicitly cited east Jerusalem as a pretext to cancel the vote, as Abbas did in 2021.
“These efforts disregarded the hopes of millions of Palestinians who had waited two decades and welcomed this democratic opportunity,” Sinijlawi said.
“It would have allowed them to participate in the political system by exercising their most basic right: electing their representatives to the Legislative Council and making their voices heard after years of being silenced.
Abbas's decision harmful to Gaza candidates
Sinijlawi said he found it “difficult” to view the postponement as “anything other than putting the interests of those who benefit from the status quo ahead of the public interest” and added that “the right to vote is not a favor granted by anyone. It must not remain hostage to the calculations of those who fear the people’s choice.”
Explaining to the Post how Abbas’s decision was particularly harmful to candidates in Gaza, he said that “many stepped forward” while living in tents and that they had put all their efforts into running “because they believed they could help shape a different future.”
“Their candidacy was an act of hope: a chance to move from surviving devastation to representing their communities and rebuilding their lives,” he continued.
“They now face another year of uncertainty, with no guarantee that the new date will be honored. The damage goes beyond disrupted campaigns. It undermines trust in peaceful democratic change and tells a generation that has never voted that its voice can wait again. Gaza’s emerging leaders deserve the opportunity to lead, and its people deserve the right to choose them.”
Ahmad Shadid, leader of the Phoenix list, also expressed distrust in the PA’s explanation for the postponement.
“If I were one of those behind the idea of postponing [the elections], I would have some self-respect and be honest, and tell people: ‘The Authority is in our hands. We decided to hold elections, and then we changed our minds. You can go to hell.’ But I shouldn’t act like an idiot and talk about circumstances, national dialogue, and … legitimacy, Shadid wrote.”
Postponing elections reflects 'depth of current crisis'
Majda Al-Masri, deputy secretary-general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and head of the Unity and Democratic Change list, wrote that “postponing elections reflects the depth of the current crisis and the inability of existing institutions to address the challenges” and called for a national dialogue to “unify efforts to confront the occupation and its plans.”
Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative list and a former information minister in the Palestinian unity government formed in 2007, made clear he opposed the postponement and demanded on X/Twitter that the Palestinian Authority guarantee that the election will not be delayed next September again.
Despite opposing the postponement, Barghouti said he welcomed the fact that legislative and presidential elections would be held in unison and said it was necessary to review restrictions ahead of September that would “undermine the democratic right to stand for election and to vote.”
“This comprehensive national dialogue must also be devoted to developing a unified national strategy to confront the ongoing genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, as well as the war of settler terror and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” he added.