Palestinian legislative elections: a big step towards the first elections in 15 years

Hamas representatives come to submit their list to the Election Commission.

The REUTERS - ALI SAWAFTA

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3 min

Thirty-six lists, little parity, and competition from Fatah: the Palestinian electoral commission publishes the official candidatures for the legislative elections.

This is one more step towards elections, the first in 15 years.

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With our correspondent in Ramallah

,

Alice Froussard

This Tuesday, April 6, the Palestinian Election Commission published the final lists for the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 22, which will elect the 132 members of the Legislative Council.

A vote, before presidential elections, to end divisions, strengthen the representativeness of Palestinian governance and boost international support.

Groups had until last Wednesday (March 31) to submit their candidates.

All the submitted lists were accepted: there are 36;

7 are from traditional Palestinian parties and factions, and 29 are independent lists.

In all, 1,389 candidates, not very representative of a very young Palestinian society, as 40% are over 50 years old.

There is no real parity either with only 29% of women among the candidates.

Even if most of the lists will not reach the minimum electoral threshold to enter Parliament, the end of the divisions announced promises to be complicated with so many lists.

Fatah under threat

Fatah, the party of Mahmoud Abbas, will be put to the test, faced with competition from several of its former members, who have chosen to present their own list.

This is the case of Naser al Qudwa, nephew of Yasser Arafat with his “Freedom” list, supported by an influential party official in prison,

Marwan Barghouti.

Salam Fayyad

, the former Palestinian prime minister, also submitted his list, as did Mohammad Dahlan, ex-close and now rival of Abbas, exiled in the United Arab Emirates.

Until the elections, there are still many obstacles such as the question of voting in East Jerusalem, or possible arrests or impediments on the part of the Israelis.

Process blocked since 2009

For fifteen years, internal Palestinian politics have been disjointed and blocked.

In the last legislative elections of 2006, the victory of Hamas and its takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007 - at the cost of bloody fighting between Palestinian factions - resulted in a notorious division with Fatah, which tightened its grip on Hamas in the West Bank.

Parliament has never met in plenary session since.

The mandate of President Mahmoud Abbas should have ended in 2009, but the various attempts at reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah - to allow the holding of elections - have so far failed.

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• Palestinian territories

• Mahmoud Abbas