The Palestinian Political System in a Phase of Reshaping: Implications of Amending the General Elections Law

At a political moment characterized by accumulating crises and a reordering of the rules of Palestinian political action, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decision to amend the General Elections Law. This step goes beyond a mere technical update, transforming into an attempt to re-engineer the Palestinian political system in terms of representation, governance mechanisms, and the relationship between existing political institutions. This comes in the context of preparing for legislative and national elections expected in 2026, and the announcement of an intention to hold presidential elections in 2027, after many years of the Legislative Council's inactivity and its dissolution by presidential decree in 2018, and the absence of elections since 2006.

The amendments included increasing the number of Legislative Council members from 132 to 200, a change that does not merely reflect a numerical expansion, but a broader redistribution of the concept of political representation within the legislative institution. This allows for the entry of new forces, relatively reduces the monopoly of major factions over seats, and redistributes opportunities to new forces, independents, youth, and women. The electoral threshold was also lowered from 2% to 1%, an amendment that appears simple mathematically but carries a profound political impact, as it opens the door for small lists and independents to enter parliament more easily, and increases the number of political actors within it, leading to a more diverse and fragmented reshaping of the representation map at the same time. In addition, the amendments included raising the number of candidates on each list to 20, enhancing women's representation by requiring at least one woman for every three candidates, and lowering the age of candidacy to 23 instead of 28, thus opening the way for a younger and more diverse political generation.

This expansion of participation rules cannot be separated from its structural consequences, as the combination of increasing the number of seats and lowering the electoral threshold leads to a more pluralistic parliament, but at the same time, one that is less capable of forming a stable majority. The wider the base for entry into the council, the more blocs and lists there will be, and the less likely it is for a single faction or even a limited alliance to dominate legislative decisions. In this sense, the political system shifts from a logic of decisive victory to a logic of continuous negotiation, where alliances become a permanent necessity rather than an option, and stability becomes contingent on the ability of different parties to manage complex balances within a more crowded and diverse institution.

In this context, the relationship between Palestinian political forces, especially Fatah and Hamas, becomes more complex, as it is difficult for any party to achieve an individual majority. This means that political influence will not only be linked to the size of the electoral bloc, but also to each party's ability to build flexible alliances with other forces, including small lists and independents who may become decisive elements in tipping the balance of blocs within parliament. Instead of the balance of power being based solely on numerical superiority, it will also be based on the ability to maneuver and build partnerships within a multi-party scene.

Politically, these amendments redistribute gains among different actors without giving any single party a decisive advantage. Fatah benefits from strengthening its position within the general political structure and its ability to manage alliances within a more pluralistic parliament, while Hamas finds a broader opportunity to translate its popular weight into institutional representation within the Legislative Council, with the possibility of this presence extending to the National Council within the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In contrast, independents and small lists are the most direct beneficiaries electorally due to the lowering of the threshold and the expansion of seats, allowing them to enter parliament and play an influential negotiating role despite their limited size. As for the representation of the diaspora, it regains some of its weight within the national representation equation by linking the interior to the National Council, but it remains subject to the logic of political consensus rather than being an independent decisive factor. In this sense, the amendments do not produce a single winner as much as they reshape the balance of power within a more pluralistic system with complex balances.

If elections are held without prior political consensus among the main forces, the scene may lead to several potential paths: continued division within a parliamentary framework with large blocs unable to make decisive decisions, accompanied by partial paralysis and difficulty in passing laws; or forced coexistence in which cooperation occurs on daily issues such as budgets and services while major political differences remain unresolved; or the formation of a consensus government or partial national unity under internal or external pressure, but remaining fragile due to deep disparities in political projects; or, in the most complex scenario, the re-production of division within institutions, so that the council becomes a permanent arena of political conflict where decision-making centers multiply, legitimacies overlap, and legislative work is paralyzed or chronically slowed down.

The sensitivity of these transformations increases with the deeper dimension related to the link between the Legislative Council and the Palestinian National Council, as members of the Legislative Council are supposed to automatically become members of the National Council. This means that the election results will not remain confined within the legislative authority, but will directly transfer to the broader representative structure of the Palestinian people within the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Here appears the most important transformation: the entry of forces such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad, if they participate and win, will not be limited to parliamentary representation, but will automatically extend to the National Council, i.e., to the comprehensive institution for Palestinian representation at home and abroad. This does not automatically mean recognition of Israel or a direct change in political positions, because membership in a representative institution does not mean adopting its entire reference, but rather entering into a broader negotiating framework about the nature of national decision-making, which makes its real impact related to reshaping the balance of power within the organization rather than being a direct ideological transformation.

In this context, the Palestinian National Council becomes not just a numerical extension of the Legislative Council, but a broader political structure that also includes Palestinians abroad, i.e., the diaspora, meaning that Palestinian representation is not limited to the interior only, but extends to multiple countries where Palestinian communities form an essential part of the political and symbolic structure of national representation.

Here a more complex balance equation emerges, as the results of internal elections alone are not enough to determine the majority within the National Council, because the diaspora constitutes a parallel political bloc with significant historical and organizational weight within the Palestine Liberation Organization. At the same time, the representation of the diaspora is not entirely separate from the interior, nor is it based on broad direct elections, but is often achieved through consensus, appointments, and organizational representation within existing political frameworks, which makes the diaspora itself part of the power balances within the organization and not a completely independent bloc. In this sense, it cannot be said that the interior alone determines the balance of the National Council, nor can the diaspora be considered a completely separate element; rather, the two form an intertwined system of balance, where political influence interacts between them within a single structure.

This intertwining between the interior and the diaspora means that the Palestinian National Council is not subject to a simple direct electoral logic, but to a logic of complex balances, where the majority is not determined solely through ballot boxes in the interior, nor through appointments in the diaspora, but through continuous interaction between the two blocs within the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In this sense, Palestinian representation becomes a dual system: an interior that produces electoral legitimacy, and a diaspora that produces historical and organizational legitimacy, and together they form the balance of the final decision.

Between this complex structure, the political system transforms from a simple model based on an internal parliament and government to a more complex system extending between the interior and the diaspora, between elections and appointments, and between direct representation and organizational balances. Ultimately, these amendments do not merely reformulate the election law, but reformulate the nature of the political system itself: from a system based on a relative majority within a legislative institution, to a system extending between the interior and the diaspora, between elections and consensus, between direct representation and organizational balances—a system that is more pluralistic and expansive, but at the same time more complex and fragile, and more dependent on the ability of political actors to transform pluralism from a source of permanent conflict into a viable governance mechanism.