Palestinians Schedule a Parliamentary Election

The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, is attempting to regain an ounce of legitimacy by announcing an election. The scheduled November 28 parliamentary votes, if they take place — a big if — will be the first such exercise in two decades. Beyond procedural questions, elections where democratic institutions and rule of law are absent can lead to bad results. The record of imposing democracy on the Mideast is dismal. Twenty years have passed since Washington, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pushed presidential and parliamentary elections in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The secular, Soviet-educated Mr. Abbas, who was the preferred candidate of the West, won the presidency. One year earlier, though, his rivals, the militant Islamists Hamas, won a majority of 74 seats in the Authority’s 132-member parliament and became ruler of Gaza by killing its Fatah rivals. Known as Abu Mazen, Mr. Abbas never looked back. The 90-year-old is entering the third decade of his 4-year presidency. He is despised by a new generation of West Bankers who live under corruption, stagnation, and ineffective rule. While municipal votes are occasionally held, millennials never had the opportunity to elect their leaders. Hamas, meanwhile, committed the October 7, 2023, massacres. Under Gaza’s ruins the terrorists are also unpopular. That’s why Hamas is reportedly planning to field candidates under a non-Hamas banner. Mr. Abbas, meanwhile, is believed to be grooming his son, Yasser, to inherit the presidency. Then again, too, a convicted terrorist, Marwan Barghouti, is leading polls to win a presidential election, if it takes place. Barghouti, though, is in an Israeli prison, where he is serving five lifetimes for his role in leading terror attacks. Either way, no presidential election is currently scheduled and parliamentary votes are far from guaranteed as well. Israel bans Arab citizens who live at united Jerusalem from participating in a Palestinian election. Mr. Abbas, as he did in 2021, can now use that ban, and also doubts about Gaza participation, to cancel the election. It wasn’t his idea anyway. Arabs and Europeans promoting Palestinian statehood pushed him to make the announcement. Outside of Israel, the record of Mideast elections is dismal. Saddam Hussein habitually “won” 100 percent of Iraq’s votes. Other Arab leaders settled for 97 percent. The so-called Arab Spring that shook the region gave rise to contested, but in most cases unsatisfying, elections. Egyptians cheered a military coup that overthrew an inept elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammad Morsi. Unlike 20 years ago, Washington is now tired of Mr. Abbas. His Palestinian Authority promotes anti-Israel measures at the Hague and other international fora. It uses foreign donations to pay families of terrorist “martyrs.” America banned Mr. Abbas’s visit to New York, where he annually stars at next week’s United Nations gabfest. The UN general assembly promptly voted to allow Mr. Abbas to address world leaders by video from Ramallah. Supporters of a Palestinian state, including Arab and European donors, are hoping that elections would lend legitimacy to a government that has long lost its citizens’ trust. Legitimacy could embolden those who are eager to start rebuilding Gaza — and force an Israelis withdrawal. A veneer of democracy, though, is unlikely to convince Israelis — and most Palestinian Arabs — that peace is around the corner.

Palestinians Schedule a Parliamentary Election

Palestinians Schedule a Parliamentary Election

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