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Elections in Palestine are held sporadically. Elections for thePalestinian National Authority (PNA) were held in Palestinian Autonomous areas from 1994 until their transition into theState of Palestine in 2013. Elections were scheduled to be held in 2009,[1] but was postponed because of theFatah–Hamas conflict. PresidentMahmoud Abbas agreed to stay on until thenext election,[2] but he was recognized as president only in the West Bank and not byHamas in Gaza. The Palestinian National Authority has held several elections in thePalestinian territories, including elections for president, the legislature andlocal councils. The PNA has amulti-party system, with numerousparties. In this system,Fatah is the dominant party.
The firstlegislative and presidential elections were held in 1996; the firstlocal elections in January–May 2005. Previous (failed) Legislative Council elections were held in1923 under theBritish Mandate, and previous municipal elections were held in 1972 and 1976, organized by theIsraeli government.[3]
ThePalestinian Legislative Council passed a law in June 2005 (signed by Abbas on 13 August 2005), to increase the number of members from 88 to 132, with half to be elected usingproportional representation and half byplurality-at-large voting in traditional constituencies.[4] TheJanuary 2005 presidential election was won by Abbas of Fatah, while theJanuary 2006 legislative election was won byHamas. In 2007, a presidential decree abolished the constituency seats with all seats to be elected from a national list, and prohibited parties which did not acknowledge the Palestine Liberation Organization's right to represent the Palestinian people (specifically Hamas) from contesting the election.[5] An opinion poll suggested that a majority of Palestinians supported the change, while Hamas called it illegal.[6]
Elections in thePalestinian Authority are held to exercise the Palestinian right toself-determination in connection with their right to establish their own state, but are held under military occupation.[7] They are held in the framework of theOslo Accords, meaning that the power of the PNA was (and is) limited to matters such as culture, education, ID-cards, and the distribution of land and water as per the Oslo Interim Agreement.[A][8]
In October 2007, 2 ex-ministers and 45 PLC members were in Israeli detention.[9] In July 2012, there were 4,706 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Of these, 22 were PLC members, of which 18 were in administrative detention.[10][11][12] The November 2013 figures of Addameer give about 5,000 prisoners imprisoned by Israel, of which 14 are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (10 PLC members inadministrative detention).[13]
Hamas announced its intention to once again boycott local elections and has repeatedly prevented free, local elections since it first took power of Gaza in 2004.[14]
Following theFatah–Hamas conflict that started in 2006, Hamas formed a government ruling the Gaza Strip without elections. Gazan Prime Minister Haniyye announced in September 2012 the formation of asecond Hamas government, also without elections.
At the 1996 general election, Fatah won 55 of the 88 seats from multi-member constituencies, with the number of representatives from each constituency determined by population. Some seats were set aside for the Christian and Samaritan communities. 51 seats were allocated to the West Bank, 37 to the Gaza Strip. Five out of 25 female candidates won a seat.
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fatah | 1,085,593 | 30.90 | 50 | |
| Palestinian People's Party | 102,830 | 2.93 | 0 | |
| National Democratic Coalition | 79,058 | 2.25 | 1 | |
| Palestinian Democratic Union | 71,672 | 2.04 | 1 | |
| Liberty & Independence Bloc | 57,516 | 1.64 | 1 | |
| Palestinian Popular Struggle Front | 26,034 | 0.74 | 0 | |
| Arab Liberation Front | 22,810 | 0.65 | 0 | |
| Islamic Struggle Movement | 12,285 | 0.35 | 0 | |
| Islamic Jihad Movement | 8,391 | 0.24 | 0 | |
| National Democratic Movement | 6,831 | 0.19 | 0 | |
| Future Bloc | 6,584 | 0.19 | 0 | |
| Palestinian Liberation Front | 3,919 | 0.11 | 0 | |
| National Movement for Change | 2,658 | 0.08 | 0 | |
| Palestinian National Coalition | 2,635 | 0.08 | 0 | |
| Ba'ath Party | 2,230 | 0.06 | 0 | |
| Progressive National Bloc | 1,707 | 0.05 | 0 | |
| Independents | 2,020,213 | 57.51 | 35 | |
| Total | 3,512,966 | 100.00 | 88 | |
At the 2006 legislative election, six parties and 4 independents won seats. Change and Reform (i.e., Hamas) won 44.45% of the vote and 74 seats, while Fatah won 41.43% of the vote and 45 seats.
 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Proportional | District | Total seats | |||||
| Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | Seats | |||
| Hamas | 440,409 | 44.45 | 29 | 1,932,168 | 40.82 | 45 | 74 | |
| Fatah | 410,554 | 41.43 | 28 | 1,684,441 | 35.58 | 17 | 45 | |
| Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine | 42,101 | 4.25 | 3 | 140,074 | 2.96 | 0 | 3 | |
| The Alternative (Palestine) | 28,973 | 2.92 | 2 | 8,216 | 0.17 | 0 | 2 | |
| Palestinian National Initiative | 26,909 | 2.72 | 2 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 2 | |
| Third Way (Palestinian political party) | 23,862 | 2.41 | 2 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 2 | |
| Palestinian Popular Struggle Front | 7,127 | 0.72 | 0 | 8,821 | 0.19 | 0 | 0 | |
| Palestinian Arab Front | 4,398 | 0.44 | 0 | 3,446 | 0.07 | 0 | 0 | |
| Palestinian Liberation Front | 3,011 | 0.30 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 | |
| National Coalition for Justice and Democracy | 1,806 | 0.18 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 | |
| Palestinian Justice | 1,723 | 0.17 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 | |
| Palestinian Democratic Union | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 3,257 | 0.07 | 0 | 0 | |
| Independents | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 953,465 | 20.14 | 4 | 4 | |
| Total | 990,873 | 100.00 | 66 | 4,733,888 | 100.00 | 66 | 132 | |
The 1996 president election was won byYassir Arafat with 88.2% of the vote.[15]
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yasser Arafat | Fatah | 643,079 | 89.82 | |
| Samiha Khalil | Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine | 72,887 | 10.18 | |
| Total | 715,966 | 100.00 | ||
Mahmoud Abbas gained 62.52% of the vote at the 2005 presidential election, while his most important competing candidate,Mustafa Barghouti, won 19.48%.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mahmoud Abbas | Fatah | 501,448 | 67.38 | |
| Mustafa Barghouti | Independent | 156,227 | 20.99 | |
| Taysir Khalid | Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine | 26,848 | 3.61 | |
| Abelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar | Independent | 22,171 | 2.98 | |
| Bassam as-Salhi | Palestinian People's Party | 21,429 | 2.88 | |
| Sayyid Barakah | Independent | 10,406 | 1.40 | |
| Abdel Karim Shubeir | Independent | 5,717 | 0.77 | |
| Total | 744,246 | 100.00 | ||
Following the Israeli victory in theSix Day War, Israel gave limited autonomy to the West Bank, holding mayoral elections in 1972 and1976.[16] The elections were held under an amended version of the 1955 Jordanian electoral law, which granted the right to vote to all Palestinians over the age of 21,[17] the law having previously restricted the franchise to male property owners,[18] although women weren't able to vote until the 1976 elections.[19] The changes in the franchise were opposed by Jordan, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stated that an occupying power should maintain the status quo in any occupied territories.[20] There were boycotts and threats of violence in the 1972 elections,[21] but by 1976 the PLO changed to actively participating in these elections.[16] Later elections were not held due to the elections of nationalist mayors in the 1976 elections[19] out of concerns that further elections would "cause damage to the peace process."[22]
Local elections in 2005 were held in four stages, but were never completed. The last stage was on 23 December 2005, with elections in 26 municipalities that had over 140,000 registered voters in Jericho and 25 villages in the West Bank. The elections were observed by theCongress of theCouncil of Europe, with the head of mission,Christopher Newbury, commenting "Inside the polling stations, the Congress observed a free and fair election. Outside them, further improvements remain to be made."[23]
Further local elections were planned, as over a quarter of the Palestinian population had had no chance to vote in them, including those in major towns such as Hebron, but they did not take place, due to conflict between Hamas and Fatah after the legislative elections of 2006.
Four year term of local councils in Palestinian Authority expired in January 2009. Council of Ministers called for local elections to be held on 17 July 2010, but after Fatah proved incapable of agreeing on list of candidates, the call for elections was canceled on 10 June 2010. The election was postponed and was later held in 2012 after several delays.
SeeTimeline of the 2012 Local Elections
Seehere for a useful set of maps in Arabic.
The elections were planned for 8 October 2016 but were delayed until 13 May 2017.
The elections were held on 11 December 2021.[24]
Following the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, the "Elections Commission" was formed to conduct thePalestinian presidential and legislative elections in 1996, the first elections in the Palestinian Authority. ThePalestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) was given the task of voter registration.
The Central Elections Commission (CEC) was established in October 2002 as an independent and neutral body under theGeneral Elections Law of 1995. The Elections Law, issued in August 2005, stipulated that the CEC is "the supreme body that undertakes the management, supervision, preparation and organization of elections and to take all necessary measures to ensure its integrity and freedom".[25]Hanna Nasir has been the chairman of the CEC since 2002.
Under theLocal Council Elections Law No. (10) of 2005, the CEC became responsible for organizing local council elections, in addition to organizing elections of the President of the Palestinian National Authority and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.[25]
TheElections Reform Support Group (ERSG) was formed with support from theUnited States and theEuropean Union to support Palestinian elections.[26] One of the leading organizations for the ESRG is theInternational Foundation for Electoral Systems, which has actively assisted the Central Election Commission in 2004–2005 with the help ofUSAID.[26] They continue to support the election commission.[26]
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