Hamas declares readiness for year-end Palestinian elections

Hamas will take part in the Palestinian general election at the end of this year under the broadest possible national coalition, a member of the organisation’s political bureau, Hussam Badran, said on Wednesday. In an interview with Al-Aqsa TV, Badran stated that Hamas and most Palestinian political factions and coalitions reject ‘political conditions or demands that participants in the elections adopt a specific political programme’. He said the Central Elections Commission and the courts continue to work to ‘ensure the Palestinian people can freely choose the political programme they want’. Badran described the upcoming election as a ‘historic opportunity’ to reshape the Palestinian political landscape and ‘end two decades of unilateral decision-making in national affairs’. The Hamas politician argued that elections in Palestine should have been held long ago, accusing the Palestinian leadership of unilaterally setting the timing and procedures for the upcoming vote. He cited the 2006 and 2021 elections as examples of polls conducted in accordance with national consensus. The Palestinian people, he said, have an ‘inherent right’ to choose their leaders and political programme through legislative elections in the Palestinian territories, or through elections for the Palestinian National Council, which he described as ‘the broader representative body for the Palestinian people’. President Mahmoud Abbas recently announced that legislative elections will take place on 28 November 2026, followed by the convening of the National Council and presidential elections in 2027. The Palestinian Legislative Council has been inactive since 2007 following the political split and Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip. President Abbas dissolved the body in 2018. The last legislative elections in Palestine were held 20 years ago, in 2006. The Palestinian political system has been divided since 2007, with Hamas controlling Gaza, which has been under Israeli attack since October 2023, and Fatah controlling the occupied West Bank.