Abbas postpones Palestinian legislative elections to September 2027, first vote since 2006

Decree sets new dates

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has postponed the legislative elections due on 28 November 2026 until 11 September 2027, and has called a presidential election for the same day. The decree, reported by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, was issued on Saturday, 10 October, after a committee of top Palestinian officials met that morning to discuss the delay. The presidential poll had been expected in early 2027, a timetable Abbas set out by decree in June. The decree calls on Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza to vote on the new date, and it said the postponement was needed to establish suitable political, security and on-the-ground conditions for "free, fair and inclusive elections". Abbas had reaffirmed the November timetable in his 24 September address to the UN General Assembly.

Israeli measures in the West Bank

The decree blames Israeli military attacks, settlement expansion, settler violence and movement restrictions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, for making preparations difficult. It also cites Israel's continued withholding of Palestinian tax revenues. The Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, which Abbas heads, said conditions in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza were not conducive to holding elections. Israel had not allowed election materials or international observers to enter Gaza, the committee said. Israeli restrictions on access for election commission staff and observers to Gaza and East Jerusalem further complicated preparations, the decree said.

Gaza conditions and stalled logistics

For Gaza, the decree points to exceptional security and humanitarian conditions, the incomplete withdrawal of Israeli forces, the lack of progress on reconstruction, and the failure to implement arrangements for deploying international stabilisation forces and police. WAFA reported that the lack of progress on the stabilisation force also factored into the decision. Palestinian authorities had said earlier this week that Israel was refusing their electoral officials access to East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The main political groups had not yet registered their electoral lists, and the logistical questions for voting in Gaza and East Jerusalem remained unresolved.

Factional talks in Cairo

Two Palestinian officials told Reuters on Thursday that leaders of Fatah and Hamas had agreed at a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday to postpone the elections. A source told AFP on Thursday that Palestinian factions, including Fatah, had agreed to hold a national dialogue before the legislative vote and wanted it postponed. The decree says the decision followed consultations with Palestinian factions and political forces, and that the delay would allow time for a comprehensive Palestinian national dialogue. Inside Fatah, Dimitri Diliani, spokesman of its reformist democratic faction, said the postponement extends Abbas's autocratic rule. He accused the European Union of bearing political responsibility for that rule.

Background and reaction

The last legislative election took place on 25 January 2006, when Hamas won 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Hamas took sole control of Gaza a year later after fighting with Fatah, and the parliament was largely unable to function before a court ordered its dissolution in late 2018. Abbas won the presidential election on 9 January 2005, and his regular four-year term ended in 2009. On Friday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Abbas of "fooling the international community" by planning to cancel the promised elections. The postponement leaves entrenched Palestinian leaders unchallenged and threatens to further erode the Palestinian Authority's credibility among Palestinians and the donors who fund it.