Abbas sets Palestinian elections for 2026 amid skepticism and pressure

Mahmoud Abbas set Palestinian legislative elections for Nov. 28, 2026, in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, but the decree immediately revived doubts over whether the vote will actually happen. The Palestinian president also said presidential elections would follow in early 2027, though he did not say whether he would seek another term.

The announcement came as Abbas faces mounting pressure to show the Palestinian Authority can still command legitimacy and deliver reforms. France and Saudi Arabia have been among the foreign backers pressing for change, while the leadership in Ramallah is still trying to present a workable political timetable after years of delay.

The obstacles are familiar. The last Palestinian legislative elections were held in 2006, when Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah party, and the Palestinian Legislative Council has not met since 2007. Abbas won the last presidential election in 2005 on a four-year mandate, then remained in office long after that term expired, ruling largely by decree for more than 15 years.

The 2026 decree also lands against a severe split in Palestinian politics. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, while Abbas’s authority has governed parts of the West Bank. That divide makes any national vote difficult to organize, especially with the status of East Jerusalem still unresolved. In 2021, Palestinians were told voting could not proceed without Israeli guarantees in Jerusalem, and that dispute was cited as the reason Abbas postponed elections indefinitely after first announcing them.

Gaza poses an even deeper logistical problem after the war that began in October 2023. Nearly all of the enclave’s 2.1 million residents were displaced, and much of its infrastructure was destroyed, leaving registration, campaigning and balloting far harder to imagine on schedule. The decree nonetheless calls for a vote across the Palestinian territories, a promise that will now be tested against the same legal, political and security obstacles that derailed the 2021 process.

That earlier cancellation triggered sharp backlash from Palestinian factions, which accused Abbas of undermining the democratic process. Analysts said then that Fatah was fragmented, Hamas was likely to do well and Abbas was facing a legitimacy crisis. The 2021 plan had also envisioned parliamentary elections first, followed by presidential and Palestinian National Council elections, a sequence that now appears to be returning under far more difficult conditions.