A Reading of Eng. Tayseer Muhaisen's Article: Elections or Rebuilding the National Project?

As in every sharp national turning point, comrade Tayseer Muhaisen excels in devising creative ideas and presents a coherent political thesis that can serve as a roadmap for exiting the current Palestinian dilemma, especially amidst the debate surrounding the issue of elections. It is not based on rejecting elections as a constitutional right and a democratic tool, but rather on reordering national priorities before reaching them. Thus, he shifts the discussion from the question: “Should we hold elections?” to a deeper question: “What needs to be achieved nationally so that elections become the culmination of a political process, not a substitute for it?”

Tayseer’s article does not stem from a pro- or anti-election stance, but from an attempt to redefine their position in the hierarchy of Palestinian national priorities. Elections, in his view, are not an end in themselves, but a means whose value is determined by their political function. If they contribute to strengthening the national project, advancing the liberation struggle from occupation, and restoring national unity, they would be a step forward. However, if they come to reproduce the existing political system with its tools and imbalances, or to confer new legitimacy on the transitional phase, they become part of the crisis, not an entry point to its solution.

From this perspective, Muhaisen reorders national priorities, presenting a set of strategic tasks that should precede any electoral entitlement.

The first of these priorities is building a unified Palestinian national stance towards the next phase, because any elections held amidst division and the absence of a common political vision will not produce a comprehensive national legitimacy, but may instead generate conflicting legitimacies that deepen the crisis at a moment when the enemies of our people seek to exploit the division to complete their targeting of the national project.

The second priority is to build a representative national consensus that restores the standing of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the comprehensive national framework and establishes a genuine political partnership, so that elections become part of the process of rebuilding the Palestinian political system, not merely a reshuffling of Authority institutions and the accompanying competition between centers of influence.

The third priority is the necessity of not reverting to the ceiling of the transitional phase. The article warns against elections becoming a tool to reproduce the equations that emerged under the Oslo Accords, or to consecrate the ceiling that the occupation gradually sought to lower until it was determined by the advance of its tank treads and settlement bulldozers. What is required, however, is to build upon the recognition of the State of Palestine and develop national achievements, not to return to managing a transitional authority with limited powers as if the political process had not witnessed any development.

In the same context, comrade Tayseer, in his important article, draws attention to the fact that a large part of the international discussion focuses on “reforming the Palestinian Authority” more than on ending the occupation, which necessitates caution against elections becoming a response to external priorities, instead of being a response to the needs of the Palestinian people and the requirements of their national struggle.

The author places recovery in the Gaza Strip at the forefront of these priorities. After the war of extermination and its widespread destruction, displacement, and economic and social collapse, providing the conditions for recovery, rebuilding society, and strengthening its resilience becomes a necessary condition before talking about normal electoral competition. Democracy does not flourish in an environment that is still struggling for survival.

His article does not call for the cancellation of elections or their indefinite postponement, but rather means that elections should be the culmination of a new national path based on unity, partnership, and recovery, not a substitute for this path or an entry point for reproducing the crisis.

The fundamental intellectual value of this article lies in redirecting the discussion from mechanisms to objectives, and from means to ends, and reminding that national legitimacy in liberation movements is not confined to the ballot box alone, but is also based on unity of representation, clarity of the national project, and the ability to lead the people in the battle for freedom and independence.

Perhaps the most important message that Tayseer Muhaisen concludes with is that elections must be a culminating station for rebuilding the Palestinian national project, not a starting point amidst continued division, stalled recovery, absence of national consensus, and the risk of returning to the ceiling of the transitional phase. The challenge today is not limited to renewing institutions, but goes beyond that to renewing the national project itself, as the comprehensive framework for all forms of political and democratic struggle.

This is a call that deserves a broad national discussion, because it does not pose the question of elections as a procedural question, but places it in its deeper context: What national project do we want? And what political system do we want these elections to legitimize?