Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has pushed legislative elections back to September 2027, official media confirmed on Saturday, validating widespread speculation that the vote would be delayed once again.
The first legislative elections since 2006, which the international community has strongly advocated for, had been scheduled for November 28, with a presidential election expected in early 2027.
However, Abbas announced in a decree that both polls will now be held on September 11, 2027, citing Israeli “obstacles,” according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Israel, which is set to hold its own elections on October 27, criticized the move and characterized Abbas as a “corrupt dictator.”
In a statement released by Wafa, Abbas’s office blamed the delay on “obstacles imposed by Israeli measures… as well as the need to create appropriate political, security and on-the-ground conditions.”
Abu Amin Joudeh, a displaced man living in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, said Palestinians still wish to vote for their representatives.
“We know things are difficult here because of the war and all the destruction, but how long will the elections continue to be postponed?” said the 40-year-old.
This week, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority stated that Israel refused to grant election officials access to east Jerusalem or Gaza ahead of the legislative vote.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denied on Friday that Israel was obstructing the process.
“(Abbas’s) attempt to drag Israel into this, falsely claiming that Israel imposed obstacles to holding elections, is yet another ridiculous lie designed to evade responsibility and accountability,” Saar said on X.
Palestinian factions, including Abbas’s Fatah party and its longtime Islamist rival Hamas, agreed to recommend postponing the elections during a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, a source present at the session told AFP.
Mohammed Dahlan, who heads a splinter group from Abbas’s Fatah party, condemned the delay as a “crime against democracy.”
“Abbas and the circle of self-serving beneficiaries around him have turned the institutions of the Palestinian Authority into a private fiefdom,” Dahlan, a Gaza native based in the United Arab Emirates, said in a statement.
– ‘Fear of the Ballot’ –
Esmat Mansour, a journalist and former official for the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), suggested Israeli restrictions had been known when the elections were initially scheduled and were not the sole explanation for the delay.
“The only thing that could explain this delay is your fear of elections. You are afraid of holding elections. You do not want people to have a say,” Mansour said in a Facebook video addressing other Palestinian factions.
Palestinian analyst Ghassan al-Khatib disagreed, however, telling AFP he never expected there to be a vote because “Israel is making conditions that are not conducive to elections”.
“I don’t think that the internal Palestinian politics are the reason for the postponement,” the former Palestinian Authority minister said, pointing to the devastation and ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, as well as Israeli military operations and settler violence in the West Bank.
East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 before annexing it, hosts a large Palestinian population that the PA says should vote in elections, but it accuses Israel of refusing to allow them to organize.
Holding polls remains part of the reforms demanded by the international community, including the European Union, for the Palestinian Authority.
The last legislative elections in the Palestinian territories were held in 2006, when the Islamist movement Hamas defeated Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority.
The ensuing rift led to factional fighting, with Hamas later seizing power in the Gaza Strip and creating a divide with Fatah in the West Bank.
As a result, the Palestinian Legislative Council, which serves as the PA’s parliament, has not met since 2007.
Abbas won the last Palestinian presidential election in 2005, and his term was due to expire in 2009, but he has since ruled by decree.