Palestinian president announces first elections in 15 years

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (right), delivers the electoral decree to the president of the national electoral committee, Hanna Nasser, this Friday in the West Bank city of Ramallah. THAER GHANAIM / AFP

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, announced this Friday the call for legislative and presidential elections for 2021, the first in 15 years.

"The president has ordered the electoral committee and all state bodies to launch a democratic election process in all localities of the country," says the text of the presidential decree, referring to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The legislative elections will be held on May 22 and the presidential elections on July 31.

A third, to elect the Palestinian National Council, will take place on August 31.

The announcement, expected by the international community, comes five days before the inauguration of Joe Biden as president of the United States, with whom the Palestinians intend to reestablish the relationship after the mandate of Donald Trump, very close to Israel.

"It is as if the Palestinians are telling the incoming US Administration: we are prepared to compromise," Hani Habib, a Gaza political analyst, told Reuters.

Abbas's decision is also part of the reconciliation process between the two main Palestinian factions (Al Fatah - which is the backbone of the Palestinian Authority and which partially controls the West Bank - and Hamas, which governs Gaza) spurred by the normalization agreements with Israel reached by four Arab countries in recent months: United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

"We have worked in recent months to remove all obstacles in order to reach this day," Hamas reacted in a statement, in which it also asked that voters be able to "express their will without restrictions or pressure, with full justice. and transparency ”.

The announcement of the date, which was expected as a new step in the aforementioned reconciliation process, is also interpreted as a response to criticism of the democratic legitimacy of Palestinian institutions, including the presidency of Abbas.

Palestine has not held presidential elections since 2005 (which Abbas won and for which Hamas did not present a candidate) and legislative elections since 2006, which Hamas won and were followed by an internal division that culminated a year later in the Islamist movement's takeover of Gaza. .

The latest polls point to close competition.

According to a poll last month by the Palestinian Center for Policies and Polls, 38% of those consulted would vote in the legislative elections for Fatah, chaired by Abbas, while 34% would vote for Hamas.

In the presidential elections, on the other hand, Ismail Haniya, the head of the Hamas ranks that rules

in the Gaza Strip

, would win

with 50%, compared to 43% for Abbas.

One of the main challenges of elections for the Palestinian Authority is how to organize them into three zones over which it has varying degrees of control.

Israel prevents the Palestinian Authority from organizing political events in East Jerusalem, under Israeli occupation since 1967, and the also occupied West Bank is divided into three zones (established in the 1993 Oslo Accords) depending on the degree of administrative control and / or control. security exercised by Israel.