As has been the norm for a decade, the Oslo Accords-created Palestinian Authority has "postponed" the October elections. Unsure of the vote's outcome, Abbas's "Supreme Court" ordered the delay while they consider 2 election related issues.
While this is not an unusual move in places where the rule of law plays second fiddle to the ruling regime's whim, it illustrates the failure of Palestinians to establish an electoral democracy and a genuinely functional state.
The ascension of Hamas prompted the PA's Fatah ruling party to tighten their grip on their share of power which is most of the West Bank, creating 2 separate and competing national gov'ts.
While Fatah's intention - the exclusion of a known terrorist gang from governance - may have been pragmatic, the result has been to engender oppression. Fatah correctly sees cooperation with Israel and the international community as the path to an independent state. Hamas sees the destruction of Israel as the only solution.
As things now stand the PA must either to form a single gov't with the rule of law and peaceful coexistence as its goals or to continue with Gaza and the WB as separate entities and perhaps create a WB Palestinian State sans Gaza.
The choice is, as always, theirs.
Next month’s Palestinian local elections aren’t happening. Here’s why. [excerpted]
...The Palestinian Authority is an electoral democracy in name, but the governments that rule in the West Bank and Gaza are effectively one-party regimes. Following Hamas’s victory in 2006, violent clashes resulted in the Islamist movement seizing control of the Gaza Strip and taking over PA institutions there, including the Interior Ministry, public police and security forces. Fatah, for its part, purged much of the central PA authority structures in the West Bank of Hamas supporters. Today, these two islands of Palestinian rule persist — each under the seemingly firm grip of a single party.
Yet beneath the surface of these coercive states, sporadic episodes of relative self-rule at the local level in the West Bank and Gaza have made local elections a historically important harbinger of political sentiment. In a setting where it is unclear how the population’s interests are being represented at the national level, subnational elections are a valuable mechanism for opposition movements to form popular bases and demonstrate competence in governance. Local elections, just as they did for a brief time when Israel directly ruled the territories, have served as an important, if not entirely even, counterweight to autocratic authority. Perhaps more important, they have often served as the bellwether of fundamental shifts in the Palestinian resistance movement.
While this is not an unusual move in places where the rule of law plays second fiddle to the ruling regime's whim, it illustrates the failure of Palestinians to establish an electoral democracy and a genuinely functional state.
The ascension of Hamas prompted the PA's Fatah ruling party to tighten their grip on their share of power which is most of the West Bank, creating 2 separate and competing national gov'ts.
While Fatah's intention - the exclusion of a known terrorist gang from governance - may have been pragmatic, the result has been to engender oppression. Fatah correctly sees cooperation with Israel and the international community as the path to an independent state. Hamas sees the destruction of Israel as the only solution.
As things now stand the PA must either to form a single gov't with the rule of law and peaceful coexistence as its goals or to continue with Gaza and the WB as separate entities and perhaps create a WB Palestinian State sans Gaza.
The choice is, as always, theirs.
Next month’s Palestinian local elections aren’t happening. Here’s why. [excerpted]
...The Palestinian Authority is an electoral democracy in name, but the governments that rule in the West Bank and Gaza are effectively one-party regimes. Following Hamas’s victory in 2006, violent clashes resulted in the Islamist movement seizing control of the Gaza Strip and taking over PA institutions there, including the Interior Ministry, public police and security forces. Fatah, for its part, purged much of the central PA authority structures in the West Bank of Hamas supporters. Today, these two islands of Palestinian rule persist — each under the seemingly firm grip of a single party.
Yet beneath the surface of these coercive states, sporadic episodes of relative self-rule at the local level in the West Bank and Gaza have made local elections a historically important harbinger of political sentiment. In a setting where it is unclear how the population’s interests are being represented at the national level, subnational elections are a valuable mechanism for opposition movements to form popular bases and demonstrate competence in governance. Local elections, just as they did for a brief time when Israel directly ruled the territories, have served as an important, if not entirely even, counterweight to autocratic authority. Perhaps more important, they have often served as the bellwether of fundamental shifts in the Palestinian resistance movement.
