A Bump in the Road to Palestinian Democracy

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
11 June '10

Posted before Shabbat

Reuters reports that the Palestinian Authority has indefinitely postponed next month’s local elections “due to divisions in the Fatah party over who would run.”

In a brief statement, the cabinet, which is stacked with Fatah members, did not say why it had decided to put off the election that had been scheduled for July 17, but the officials said it was because Fatah could not agree a unified list. … Hamas Islamists, who seized control of the Gaza Strip from Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, had already said they would boycott the vote. …

A senior Fatah member added: “What’s happening inside Fatah is that there are people who are running against each other. We need some time in order to solve these internal problems.”

Elections are tough to organize when there are people who are running against each other. The good news, however, is that once you solve the internal problems with a unified list, it is relatively easy to re-schedule the election, since there will be only one party in it. So this is probably simply a bump in the road to the vibrant democracy a Palestinian state would bring to the Middle East (along with peace), as Western-backed Mahmoud Abbas enters the 66th month of his 48-month term.

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