Palestinians in the West Bank and a central area of Gaza began voting Saturday in municipal elections in a first vote since the Gaza war, marked by a narrow political field and widespread disillusionment.
For Palestinians in battle-scarred Gaza, it was the first vote in two decades since Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority in a bloody coup in 2007.
And in the West Bank, voters are casting ballots for the first time since 2022. Turnout may reflect the level of public trust in a broader system led by aging leaders in the West Bank and as Gaza prepares for an anticipated transition from Hamas rule.
The vote in the West Bank will determine the makeup of the local councils overseeing water, roads and electricity. The vote in a single city in Gaza, on the other hand, is largely symbolic, with officials calling it a “pilot.”
Though it has not held presidential or legislative elections since 2006, the PA has promoted the local races following reforms it enacted last year as part of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan.
Under the slogan “We Stay,” the Ramallah-based Central Election Commission has campaigned to encourage participation among the nearly 70,000 voters eligible in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah and 1 million in the West Bank.
Voting “reflects the will if the Palestinian people to stay on their land and develop their country,” the commission’s spokesperson Fareed Taamallah said.
Linking the West Bank and Gaza politically
With much of Gaza decimated by more than two years of war, the commission chose to hold its first vote in Deir al-Balah, which has been damaged by airstrikes but was one of the few areas spared an Israeli ground invasion following the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023.
The commission had to improvise because it was unable to conduct traditional voter registration.
“The main idea is to link the West Bank and Gaza politically as one system,” Taamallah said. Palestinians see uniting the two under one government as integral to any path to future statehood.
The commission has not coordinated directly with either Israel or Hamas ahead of the Deir al-Balah vote and has not been able to send materials like ballot paper, ballot boxes or ink into Gaza, he added. COGAT, the Defense Ministry body that oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza, did not respond to questions about whether it would allow election materials in.
Though Palestinian voter turnout has gradually decreased, it has been relatively high in past local elections by regional standards, according to commission figures, averaging between 50 and 60 percent. By comparison, turnout in recent local elections in Lebanon and Tunisia was under 40% and 12%, respectively.
A thin candidate pool
Ninety-year-old PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree last year overhauling the electoral system in line with some demands of Western donors. The reforms allow voting for individuals rather than slates, lowered the eligibility age to run and raised quotas for women candidates.
In January, another Abbas decree required candidates to accept the program of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the group that leads the PA. The program calls for the recognition of Israel and renouncing armed struggle, effectively sidelining Hamas and other factions.
Slates in major cities are dominated by Fatah, the faction that leads the Palestinian Authority, and independents, some with ties to other factions. However, it’s the first time in six local elections that no other faction has officially put forward its own slate — an absence that analysts say reflects political disillusionment under Abbas and the authority’s aging leadership.
In the Israeli-controlled West Bank, the PA exercises limited autonomy, and local councils oversee services from trash collection to building permits. Campaign posters have been plastered across cities, though many — including Ramallah and Nablus — will not hold elections because too few candidates or slates registered.
The Palestinian Authority’s power has withered over years without peace negotiations with Israel and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. But it sees local elections as a low-risk way to demonstrate progress on reforms, said Aref Jaffal, director of the al-Marsad Arab World Democracy and Electoral Monitor.
“The PA wants to show it is on the right track on political, financial and administrative reforms, and is using local elections as a symbol of that,” he said. “With the weak legitimacy of the national government, it is seeking to bolster legitimacy through local elections.”
With the authority having little recourse to address hundreds of new military gates and settler outposts constricting movement in the West Bank, he said many councils have taken on greater importance, overseeing local health centers, schools and public services that residents once accessed elsewhere.
However, some said that continued and growing Israeli control made the vote largely meaningless.
Mahmud Bader, a businessman from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, where two adjacent refugee camps have been under Israeli military control for over a year amid an ongoing anti-terror operation, said he would vote despite having little hope for meaningful change.
“Whether candidates are independent or partisan, it has no effect and will have no effect or benefit for the city,” he told AFP.
“The (Israeli) occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. It would only be an image shown to the international media — as if we have elections, a state or independence.”
Deir al-Balah poll will be Gaza’s first since 2006
Hamas won PA parliamentary elections in 2006 and violently seized control of Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority a year later. It did not put forth candidates for Saturday, but polling from the independent Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows Hamas remains the most popular Palestinian faction in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Ramiz Alakbarov, the United Nations deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, called the elections “an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise their democratic rights during an exceptionally challenging period.”
Other international actors, however, have been largely silent on the Gaza vote, with memories still fresh of past elections fueling conflict and other avenues for governance in limbo.
For Gazans, the prospect of a vote was a welcome change from the harsh daily reality.
“I’ve been hearing about elections since I was born,” said Adham Al-Bardini, sitting next to the family’s cooking pots outside their tent home in the city. “We are eager to take part … so we can change the reality imposed on us.”
Farah Shaath, 25, was excited to vote for the first time.
“Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything,” she told AFP.
Hamas controls the half of Gaza that Israeli forces withdrew from last year, including Deir al-Balah, but the coastal enclave is preparing to transition to a new governance structure under the 20-point plan that Trump released in September ahead of a ceasefire-hostage deal.
The plan established a Board of Peace made up of international envoys and a committee of independent Palestinian technocrats supposed to operate under it. Progress toward further phases, including disarming Hamas, reconstruction and a transfer of power, has stalled amid the war with Iran.
According to the text of the plan, “while Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
