Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called for legislative and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories in early November 2026 and 2027, respectively.
“President Mahmoud Abbas announced that presidential elections will be held in early 2027,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing a statement from the presidential office.
In his order, Abbas also said he is “fully prepared to hold the Palestinian National Council elections in November, including general legislative elections in the homeland and elections abroad.”
However, it is unclear whether Abbas, now 90, will run himself.
The veteran leader emerged from the last Palestinian presidential election in 2005 with a four-year term, which should have ended in 2009. But Abbas has continued to rule by presidential decree, drawing criticism both at home and abroad.
When were the last Palestinian elections?
The last legislative elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), were held in 2006 and resulted in a victory for the Islamist group Hamas over Abbas’s Fatah party.
Since then, Hamas, which is designated a terrorist group by Israel, Germany, the US and others, has ruled the Gaza Strip while Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to control other Palestinian territories such as the West Bank. The PLC has not met since 2007.
Holding democratic elections is part of reforms demanded by the international community that financially supports the Palestinian Authority.
In 2021, Abbas announced that legislative and presidential elections would be held in May and July of that year, respectively. But they were then postponed indefinitely due to a lack of guarantees that voting could take place in East Jerusalem, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
There is no guarantee that free and fair elections can be held in Gaza, which lies largely in ruins after two years of Israeli attacks in retaliation for Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, and where Hamas is still in control.
Edited by: Wesley Rahn