Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has set November 28 as the date for the first parliamentary elections in more than two decades, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Thursday.
Abbas issued the date by decree, calling upon Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip to vote.
At the last election on January 25, 2006, the Islamist Hamas organization won a majority with 74 seats in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council.
A year later, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip following violent clashes with Abbas’s Fatah movement. After that, the parliament was largely paralysed. The Palestinian Constitutional Court eventually dissolved it at the end of 2018.
Whether and under what conditions the election can take place remains uncertain. Israel has regarded East Jerusalem as part of its indivisible capital since its annexation in 1967 and has banned official political activity by the Palestinian Authority (PA) within the city. The annexation is largely not recognized internationally.
In the war-torn Gaza Strip, Hamas remains the main political actor.
The long-overdue presidential election is to be held in the first quarter of 2027.
Abbas, now 90, won the last election on January 9, 2005. His regular four-year term ended in 2009.
Since then, presidential elections have repeatedly been postponed or cancelled.