Afrasianet - Dr. Hani Al Aqad - I did not imagine that a member of parliament could stay in parliament for twenty years and was elected only once, and I did not imagine that a people would struggle for freedom and independence from their right to vote for twenty years, and when someone was saying that the members of the Palestinian legislature were no longer legitimate, the world was rising and not sitting, yet the president issued a presidential decree to dissolve the Legislative Council in December 2018 based on the ruling of the Palestinian Constitutional Court, and at that time the world stood up and did not even sit down. The only language of the opposition was that the decree dissolving the PLC was not issued, but it became effective in the West Bank and is not effective in Gaza because the Hamas government in Gaza did not abide by the presidential decree even before the October 2023 war.
Today, after twenty years, and in light of a brutal war of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and a war of annexation and settlement expansion in the West Bank, President Mahmoud Abbas issues the second decree to set Saturday, November 28, for the holding of legislative elections, and the first quarter of 2027 for the holding of presidential elections. On January 15, 2021, the President issued the third decree for the year 2021, and he had set the date of the legislative elections before that on May 22, 2021, and the date of the presidential elections was set for July 31, 2021, and the completion of the formation was set on August 31, 2021, but on April 30, the President issued another presidential decree to postpone the elections indefinitely due to the occupation's refusal to allow the elections to be held in Jerusalem, the capital.
Today, in the time of the war of extermination in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem, the silent annexation, the war of settlements, and the war on Palestinian legitimacy, a new date has been set for the legislative and presidential elections again, some are skeptical about the possibility of implementing these elections according to the presidential decree on the specified date and time, and others from the parties who like to keep the situation as it is. How can general elections be held in times of war? Others who own political malls reject the elections because they do not like the recent amendments made to the electoral system and question their accessibility, and object to the conditions for candidacy for the legislative elections, the most important of which is the acknowledgment and recognition of the program of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and consider that this is a write-off of the Palestinian opposition, especially those factions that did not join the framework of the PLO, becausetheydo not want to keeptheir political machines open to sell the illusion to a people looking for a way out of the state of division that has taken everyone in Gaza. The grinding war is a guillotine on which the necks of thousands of civilians have been placed, it has killed thousands and destroyed more than 85% of the civilian structure of the Gaza Strip, and therefore the decision of the war was not a collective Palestinian decision, but the decision of a Palestinian faction outside the framework of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians.
Great challenges facing the holding of legislative elections today in Gaza, specifically because of the continuation of the war of extermination and the division of Gaza into two parts, and because of the widespread destruction inflicted on Palestinian cities, so much so that the cities of the north, Rafah and Khan Younis have been wiped off the face of the earth, and nearly 2 million Palestinians are now living in displacement camps where they do not have the slightest elements of a decent life. As for Jerusalem, there is another matter, because Israel will certainly not allow the Palestinian legislative elections to be held in Arab Jerusalem, and the United States or the European Union will not intervene in order to convince Israel to allow the Palestinians to hold them, at least because these elections are being held today at the request and insistence of the United States and Europe as part of the reforms required of the Palestinians.
Holding elections in wartime is neither a luxury nor a democratic surplus, but it may be a first step to end the black division and stabilize the Palestinian identity on the Palestinian land, especially since all the wars that are now being waged against the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem are wars over the Palestinian political entity and political identity, and wars over geography and demography through which Israel believes it can change the political identity of the Palestinians, because Israel does not want the Palestinians to have any political representation that speaks in their name, whether on the These elections are considered a renewal of the three legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, the institution of the presidency and the legitimacy of the PLO and these legitimacys are the foundations on which the Palestinian state is based, when the decision is for the people, the decision is for the political entity of the people. Yes, there are difficulties and challenges that the Palestinian Central Elections Committee will face to implement these elections, especially in Gaza and Jerusalem.
But if the second phase of President Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza is moved and the National Committee for the Management of the Gaza Strip, the Technocrats Committee, takes over and this committee is able to achieve security and stability, this will shorten a lot of effort and will create spaces for real democratic competition and thus ensure pluralism, and it will be easy to secure the elections from the beginning of updating the electoral register, the bulletin and the candidacy process, and the lists, and protecting the election day from any tampering from parties that may sabotage the electoral process if These parties feared a certain loss of their own.
Perhaps the stability of the Gaza Strip will be the required condition for the integrity and transparency of the elections to be achieved, in a way that allows citizens to go out to direct voting and choose their representatives in Palestinian cities and communities. But if this is not possible and the situation remains as it is in Gaza, then direct elections may be achieved today with technological tools, especially that we are living in the era of artificial intelligence that creates miracles and the Palestinians are not far from these tools at all, yes, these things need experts and technicians in the fields of technology, cybersecurity, and elections at the same time, and our people have never been sterile, they have the capabilities to make these elections succeed by voting on election day in the traditional ballot box. The electronic box that can achieve speed and accuracy at the same time and avoid human errors, and this saves the Election Commission a lot of the effort required in Gaza, Jerusalem and some areas of the West Bank that may be closed by the occupation forces.
Twenty years have been waiting for an election day to renew Palestinian representation in the Legislative Council, the Presidency and the National Council, and the irony is that this national event comes at a time of horrible war, but it is not strange because the war on the Palestinians did not stop, but it was at a low pace and sometimes it was in the form of a siege and sometimes in the form of a war of extermination and ethnic cleansing like the one we are living in today. Perhaps the success of these elections, which are expected to be accomplished by this pure national effort, can pave the paths of liberation and can raise the level of global support for liberation from the brutal occupation and thus obtain the right to self-determination, which is a legitimate proof that confirms to the world that the Palestinian people, who own the Palestinian land, the Palestinian identity and their legitimate political entity, are based on this land, and it is a legitimate path towards the establishment of a state, whether Israel likes it or not.
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Dr. Hani Al Aqad
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