On September 2, President Abbas published a decree which makes several changes to the current electoral laws.  First, it requires all presidential and parliamentary candidates to recognize that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is the “sole representative” of the Palestinian people and to accept previous accords between the PLO and Israel.  The PLO is an organization created and still dominated by Fatah.  This requirement essentially requires Hamas candidates to recognize Fatah’s dominance in Palestinian politics and would force Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Second, the decree states that all elections will be done by party-listing.  In the last election, half of the seats were elected by party-listing and half by district elections.  In that election, Hamas out-polled Fatah 2 to 1 in the district election, while only winning a slight majority in the party-listing elections.  This change will clearly benefit Fatah, and may mean the difference between a parliament dominated by Fatah or one dominated by Hamas.

Third, the decree demands that in the case where no candidate wins an outright majority, there will be a run-off.  In the last election there were several Fatah candidates, which split the legions of Fatah supporters and allowed Hamas to win.  By requiring an absolute majority, the chances of another Hamas candidate winning the office is reduced.

Hamas has declared these changes to the electoral laws as illegal.  Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated that “Hamas objects to this policy of monopolizing decision making and will not deal with its outcome.” Barhoum argued that Abbas lacks the proper authority to change the election laws and that only the parliament has that authority.  But Abbas argues that he now has that authority because the parliament is no longer functioning.

One reason why the parliament is not functioning is because Israel has arrested 40 nearly Hamas lawmakers.  These arrests result in Hamas being unable to assemble the quorum for a parliamentary session to take place.  Even if a quorum was gathered, it is unlikely that Abbas would work with a Hamas dominated parliament.  Ever since Hamas took over Gaza in June, the two parties seem to be on a road to conflict.

Following the Hamas’ victory in Gaza, Abbas fired the Hamas-led government and replaced it with an “independent-led” government.  Abbas also claimed that he will call for early elections in the near future.  Hamas refuses to recognize the new government or the eventual call for early elections.  Hamas officials claim that an election cannot take place without their participation and if it does, they would not recognize its results.

For more information please see:

Los Angeles Times:  “Abbas issues anti-Hamas election rules” 3 September 2007.

Al Jazeera:  “Abbas unveils amended electoral law” 2 September 2007.

BBC:  “Abbas makes election law changes” 2 September 2007.

Forbes:  “Abbas overhauls Palestinian electoral law” 2 September 2007.