A senior Palestinian official on Thursday said legislative elections scheduled for November 28 will not take place as planned, calling instead for presidential elections to be held first. Jibril Rajoub, secretary-general of the Fatah movement, said elections should follow a comprehensive Palestinian national dialogue aimed at reaching agreement on the mechanisms for conducting the polls.

“There will be no elections,” Rajoub told reporters in Ramallah, according to AFP. He said the Palestinian leadership would move towards elections only after a national dialogue produced consensus on how they should be conducted. His remarks effectively cast doubt on the previously announced timetable for legislative elections in the Palestinian territories.

Rajoub, a senior figure in the dominant Fatah party of 90-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, argued that presidential elections should precede legislative polls. He said such an election “would solve a large part of the problem”, describing presidential elections as easier and less costly and saying they could be organised through consensus.

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The Palestinian territories have not held legislative elections since 2006, when Hamas defeated Fatah. The result deepened the political division between the two Palestinian factions, with the Palestinian Legislative Council, the parliament of the Palestinian Authority, not meeting since 2007. The political split has remained a major obstacle to holding regular elections.

Abbas has remained in office beyond the end of his presidential term, which expired in 2009, and has since governed largely through presidential decrees. The absence of regular elections has left the Palestinian political system without a renewed legislative mandate for nearly two decades, while efforts to resolve divisions between Fatah and Hamas have repeatedly faced difficulties.

The legislative election had been scheduled for November 28, slightly more than a month after Israel's general election. Rajoub's latest comments indicate that the Palestinian leadership now wants to prioritise a presidential vote and reach broader political consensus before proceeding with legislative elections. Any revised timetable would depend on the outcome of the proposed national dialogue and agreement among the Palestinian factions on the electoral process.

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