by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly
GAZA, Apr 4 (NNN-XINHUA) – With the approach of the Palestinian legislative elections, scheduled for May 22, the multiplicity of candidates heralds a potential scattering of votes and divisions in voters’ attitudes, since most of the minor independent lists of candidates are expected not to be able to cross the threshold for a seat, Palestinian analysts believe.
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission (PCEC) announced that, 36 lists have registered for the legislative elections, and all the lists will be published with the names and slogans of their candidates on Apr 6.
The number of candidates for the 2021 elections is three times more than that in the last legislative elections in 2006, in which 11 lists competed and six of them managed to cross the electoral threshold.
In Jan, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, announced that the 2021 general elections will include the legislative elections on May 22, the presidential elections on July 31, and the elections of the Palestinian National Council, the highest decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, on Aug 31.
With as many as 36 lists running for the parliamentary election, this “candidacy in chaos” explains “how eager the Palestinians are for the polls, after 15 years of postponement,” Abdulmajid Sweilem, a political analyst from the West Bank city of Ramallah, said.
“The upcoming elections are so important because it is a decisive and fateful battle that decides the future of the Palestinian political system and of the entire national cause,” he said.
Explaining the multiplicity of candidacy, Sweilem cited Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, which submitted three lists of candidates: one is official, while two others are led by former Fatah leaders, who were fired by Abbas from the party’s central committee.
“This division will certainly weaken the official list of the ruling Fatah party in the new legislative council, and may pave the road for Hamas to rule the Palestinian Authority,” the analyst warned.
While many of the candidates uphold political pluralism, many others may react negatively, thereby leading to a potential scattering of the votes, “especially when the less influential lists surprisingly gain more votes than expected,” Mkhaimar Abusada, an associate professor of political science, at al-Azhar University in Gaza, said.
“Most of the electoral lists are independent and not affiliated with any of the political factions, so the potential scattering of the votes will weaken their chances of exerting a real impact and ultimately the power of the elected Legislative Council … as the odds are that, no party will be given the necessary majority,” Abusada explained.
It is worth noting that the left-wing parties have failed to run under one unified list, while the right-wing Hamas, which rules Gaza de facto, runs under one unified list, which includes leaders of the Islamic movement in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
As the analysts pointed out, most of the small independent lists will not even reach the electoral threshold of 1.5-percent votes, given their dispersion and the political polarisation in the Palestinian territories.
Rajab Abu Sereyah, a political analyst from Ramallah, told Xinhua that the system of full proportional representation adopted in the legislative elections “will weaken the chances of most of the lists to reach the electoral threshold.”
If calculated on the basis of the 77.69-percent turnout of voters in the last legislative elections, one seat in the elected Legislative Council should equate to 20,000 to 30,000 votes.
“I believe that the small independent lists will not succeed in reaching the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), while the biggest lists of Fatah and Hamas will certainly do, but with a smaller number of the seats,” Sereyah said.– NNN-XINHUA
