Palestinian parliament to be elected for first time since 2006

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has set November 28 as the date for parliamentary elections, the first in more than two decades. Presidential elections are slated for 2027. These votes aim to revitalize Palestinian governance, which has been largely paralyzed since the Islamist Hamas movement won a majority in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Following the 2006 vote, Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party engaged in violent conflict, resulting in Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. The Palestinian Legislative Council was eventually dissolved by the constitutional court in late 2018. A planned vote in 2021 was canceled due to a lack of guarantees for holding elections in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

Recent local elections in April in the West Bank and Gaza were the first since the start of the current Gaza war. Abbas had previously pledged to restructure and renew Palestinian organizations amid long-standing accusations of corruption and a lack of democratic legitimacy against the Palestinian Authority.

The feasibility of the upcoming parliamentary elections remains uncertain. Israel, which considers East Jerusalem its indivisible capital since its 1967 annexation, prohibits official political activity by the Palestinian Authority in the city. In Gaza, Hamas remains the dominant political force. The status of Abbas, who has led the Fatah movement and the Palestinian Authority for over two decades, is also unclear, with speculation about his potential candidacy in the presidential election.