Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is weighing open options regarding the legislative elections scheduled for November 28, including postponement, amid internal disagreement within his circle over the decision and its timing, sources have told Quds News Network.
The deliberations are being complicated by an initiative from imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, which sources describe as putting Abbas before a new set of internal challenges. The Barghouti initiative calls for the formation of a unified Fatah list that brings together all currents of the movement, including the current of Mohammed Dahlan, the reinstatement of all expelled members with their salaries restored, and the convening of a new general conference for Fatah. The initiative also includes Barghouti's candidacy for the presidency. Sources told QNN that if his initiative is rejected, Barghouti and figures aligned with him within Fatah would support a rival list to the official Fatah slate, threatening the movement's unity and complicating its electoral prospects.
Sources also told QNN that Egypt intends to offer to host a broad national dialogue that would include all Palestinian factions, among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Abbas has not yet settled his position on the proposal. If the dialogue takes place, sources said, it will not be held at the level of secretaries-general, and Abbas retains a veto on direct engagement with Hamas and with Dahlan's current. The Palestinian Authority leadership leans toward postponing the legislative elections and does not favor holding the dialogue before the election question is settled. Sources said three files are on Abbas's table ahead of his expected Cairo visit: his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Fatah reconciliation with Dahlan's current, and the national dialogue.
Abbas is also studying whether to hint or state explicitly that elections cannot be held on schedule, using what sources describe as the pretext that the occupation has not approved their conduct in occupied Jerusalem and that procedures in Gaza are being obstructed, the same justification used to cancel the 2021 vote. Whether to offer this publicly or keep it as a studied ambiguity remains undecided.
Adding to the pressures surrounding Abbas, the US State Department has not yet issued him a visa to travel to the United States ahead of the UN General Assembly sessions, repeating what occurred the previous year. While the delay may be resolved, it has drawn attention in Palestinian political circles as another sign of the strained relationship between the Authority's leadership and Washington.
