Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promises legislative and presidential elections without setting a date

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised reforms and elections on Thursday at the opening of the congress of his party, Fatah, which is due to elect a new central committee for the first time in ten years. “We are preparing to organize legislative and presidential elections,” assured Mahmoud Abbas, 90 years old and in office for more than 20 years, without giving any dates. He also pledged to “continue to implement all the promised reform measures”.

The party, whose general congress is being held in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, faces immense challenges after the devastating war in the Gaza Strip, the expansion of settlement in the West Bank and an erosion of its legitimacy, analysts say. “Holding our congress today on the soil of our homeland confirms our determination to continue on the path to democracy and to open the way for young people and women,” commented Mahmoud Abbas. Later in the evening, he was “unanimously re-elected” as leader of Fatah, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

A party in decline

The planned election of a new central committee is expected to play a decisive role in the post-Abbas era. Fatah is, historically, the main component of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which brings together most Palestinian factions with the exception of the Islamist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But in recent decades, Fatah’s popularity and influence have declined due to internal divisions, rivalry with Hamas and growing public frustration with the bogged-down Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The party faces “the most serious challenges of (its) struggle,” said Jibril Rajoub, secretary general of the Fatah central committee. He said he hoped to see the General Congress help “guarantee and protect the creation of a Palestinian state on the international stage and preserve the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, refuses the emergence of a sovereign and fully independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. And he is working on the ground to make this solution impossible by extending the settlements, deemed illegal under international law, in the West Bank.

Election of representatives

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – one of the most critical European voices of the Netanyahu government – spoke in a pre-recorded video to the congress on Thursday, an opportunity to support the “two-state solution” in the name of the Socialist International.

The congress is scheduled to take place over three days and bring together approximately 2,580 participants, in person or remotely. They must elect 18 representatives within the central committee, and 80 within the revolutionary council, the party parliament.

Prominent figures seeking to succeed Mahmoud Abbas include Jibril Rajoub and Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh.

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly affirmed that the Palestinian Authority and Fatah would have no role to play in the governance of Gaza following the war. Hamas, which won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, took power in Gaza in 2007 by ousting Fatah, after months of political impasse over power sharing.