By Nadia Hijab and Diana Buttu
Institute for Palestine Studies, Policy Note No. 17, 13 July 2007
The 30-day emergency period declared by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas ends July 14. There has been talk of early elections as a way out of the political crisis, but tremendous legal, political, and physical obstacles would face such a move to say nothing of the limits on the power of a new Palestinian parliament or government.
After the Fatah-Hamas clashes in mid-June, Abbas declared a state of emergency, dismissed the government headed by Ismail Haniyeh, appointed Salam Fayyad as prime minister, suspended Articles 65 – 67 and 79 of the Basic Law that require a new government to secure a vote of confidence from the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) before taking office, and called for an international force in Gaza to support the holding of new elections. Since then, the extent of the president’s powers has been challenged.
What Lies Ahead for the PLC?
The powers of each of the executive, legislative and judiciary are spelled out in the Basic Law, the quasi-constitution of the PA. [1] Those who support the actions taken by Abbas argue that during an emergency the president has sweeping powers, including to install a new government and to suspend Basic Law articles. However, independent, expatriate Palestinian constitutional experts who led the drafting of the Basic Law say that the president did not have the power to suspend its articles, and that, while Abbas had the right to dismiss the prime minister, the Haniyeh government should have continued in a caretaker capacity until a new government could secure a vote of confidence from the PLC. [2]
In what may be a sign of things to come, Abbas convened the PLC on 11 July 2007 and, as expected, Hamas boycotted the session and there was no quorum. There are rumors that, once the state of emergency ends on July 14, Abbas intends to suspend the PLC on the grounds that it has not met for months in spite of requests to convene it. It will be recalled that Israel has jailed some 40 Hamas PLC members, including the speaker, since Hamas won the 2006 elections.
The Palestinian Elections Law (Article 2) clearly specifies the term of the PLC as four years. Nevertheless, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council, in which Hamas is not represented, called on 21 June for elections “in the nearest possible time.” The Council also called for a change in the electoral law to a system of party lists. The current system of party lists combined with district voting worked in favor of Hamas in 2006 because it was more disciplined in fielding just one candidate per district against several Fatah or Fatah-affiliated candidates.
Against this background, one thing is clear: the PA, originally established for an interim period that should have ended in 1999 according to the Oslo Accords, is now in uncharted territory. To what extent can early elections clarify these muddied waters?
Political Obstacles Facing New Elections
Should early elections be called, the first question would be whether Palestinians can attach any credibility to a democratic process that has been subverted by a United States and Israeli-led diplomatic and economic siege against the PA in the wake of the Hamas electoral victory – a siege that was not lifted for the Hamas-Fatah unity government mediated by Saudi Arabia in February 2007 but that has been lifted for the new government. According to two surveys conducted in the occupied territories just after the Hamas take-over of the Gaza Strip on 14 June, the majority of Palestinians favor the holding of early presidential and parliamentary elections as a way out of the political crisis. [3] But the fate of the 2006 electoral results will not be quickly forgotten, with adverse implications for voter turnout.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad has said that elections would not solve the crisis facing the Palestinians, but that Hamas would support elections if all Palestinian parties agreed. [4] Elections could not in fact take place in Gaza without Hamas agreement, and, although Fatah is stronger than Hamas in the West Bank, Hamas has a strong base there too. It won absolute or solid majorities in many West Bank city councils in 2005 elections. And elections anywhere in the occupied Palestinian territories in the absence of political agreement could lead to further bloodshed. For example, when Abbas called in June for an international force for Gaza, Hamas vowed to resist it. Even updating the electoral register would be impossible without guaranteed security for members of the electoral commission. Any move to hold elections in the West Bank alone would appear to sanction a division of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Moreover, in the absence of a political agreement between Hamas and Fatah – and notwithstanding the power of the US, Israel, and the EU – non governmental organizations are likely to steer clear of the process. Thousands of international observers fielded by organizations like the Carter Center played a major role in guaranteeing the integrity of the 2006 elections (as well as those of 2005 and 1996). Former president Jimmy Carter has since dubbed the Bush Administration refusal to accept the Hamas victory as “criminal” and described the Administration’s policies as an “effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples.” [5] Even assuming a Hamas-Fatah agreement to hold elections, there are other problems. The US, Israel, and others are likely to insist that parties standing for election formally adhere to the Oslo Accords, which Hamas has accepted implicitly but not explicitly. And if Hamas won again or made a strong showing, what guarantees would there be that the outcome would be respected?
Obstacles Posed by the Realities on the Ground
The political obstacles listed above pale compared to those of Israel’s military occupation. Already, in the 2006 elections, only 41,000 voters were able to vote in Arab East Jerusalem: 61.57% of registered voters, significantly lower than the average of 77.18% and the lowest in the occupied territories. Many Palestinians could not reach the polling stations, while others felt intimidated by Israeli searches and/or threats that they would lose their Jerusalem ID cards. Since then, East Jerusalem has been almost completely sealed off from the West Bank. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians are trapped between the West Bank and the Green Line by the illegal barrier Israel is building, barely able to access health care, schools, and their own land, let alone participate in elections. [6] Israel has cut Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank, and has made the Valley off-limits to all other Palestinians. The rest of the West Bank is truncated by Israeli settlements, settler-only roads, checkpoints, roadblocks, and the barrier. [7]
As for Gaza, it remains under an Israeli siege that has created desperate humanitarian and economic conditions. For example, according to a recent report by an Israeli human rights organization, over 75% of 3,900 factories have shut down due to the shortage of raw materials. [8] UNRWA on 9 July halted all building projects due to this shortage, works that had provided employment for 121,000 Palestinians. Israeli incursions and assassinations, and daily clashes between the occupying forces and Palestinians take place daily in both the West Bank and Gaza.
It is hard to see how elections can be held in these conditions, or indeed whether they can ever be held again under the so-called interim arrangements put in place by Oslo. When historians look back at the period since the 2006 elections, they may mark it as having terminally exposed the impossibility of democratic governance under conditions of military occupation.
Nadia Hijab is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies. Diana Buttu is a political analyst.
[1] The Basic Law was adopted in 2002 and amended in 2003. The PA president has the power to issue decrees. However, he may not initiate and issue laws by decree (“legislative decrees”) except in urgent cases and when the PLC is not in session. Such legislative decrees must be reviewed when the PLC reconvenes (Article 43). The president can dismiss the prime minister (Article 45), and declare a state of emergency for up to 30 days (Article 110), which can be extended for another 30 days provided two-thirds of the PLC approves. The PLC is entitled to review all measures taken by the president during a state of emergency. In addition, legislative decrees passed by the president when the PLC is not in session must be reviewed and can be abrogated by the PLC, and have been in the past.
[2] See Reuters 8 July 2007 interviews with Dr. Anis Al-Qasem and Eugene Cotran, QC. See also the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq’s critiques of the presidential decrees at www.alhaq.org
[3]The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research http://www.pcpsr.org/ survey between 14 and 20 June found that 75% wanted early presidential and parliamentary elections, while the Near East Consulting poll http://www.neareastconsulting.com between 15 and 17 June found 69% support.
[4] http://english.aljazeera.net/English 30 June 2007.
[5] AP article carried in The Jerusalem Post 19 June 2006.
[6] See UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Three Years Later: The Humanitarian Impact of the Barrier Since the International Court of Justice Opinion,” 9 July 2007.
[7] Map_Fragmentation_May07-withCheckpoint.pdf
[8] Gisha, “Commercial Paralysis: Deleting Gaza’s Economy from the Map,” 4 July 2007.
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