JERUSALEM – Sixteen years after being elected for what should be a four-year term, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority announced on Friday that the presidential and parliamentary elections would take place in the spring and summer.
The announcement appeared to be part of an effort to put the divided Palestinian house in order and project at least an appearance of unity as the Palestinian Authority prepares to restore ties with Washington and the next Biden government after some disastrous years of discord and disconnection under President Trump.
The presidential decree determined that the vote for the defunct Palestinian Legislative Council would take place on May 22, followed by presidential elections on July 31.
Abbas, 85, the leader of Fatah, the main Palestinian party, was last elected in early 2005, after the death of his predecessor, Yassir Arafat.
Analysts said they believed that Abbas now seeks to renew his legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, especially with the imminent arrival of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the White House, which, they said, Abbas hopes would be the harbinger of a return to negotiations with Israel.
“He does not want to hear from anyone who does not represent the Palestinian people and who is not in control of Gaza,” said Jihad Harb, an expert on Palestinian politics.
The last time the Palestinians went to the polls, it didn’t end well.
In 2006, a rival party representing Hamas, the Islamic militant group, defeated Fatah in elections to the Legislative Council, leading to a year and a half of difficult division of power.
The United States and much of the West refused to work with the unity government because Hamas, which they considered a terrorist organization, did not accept international demands such as renouncing violence and recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
A brief civil war between the two groups took place on the coastal territory of Gaza. It ended in June 2007, with Hamas taking control of the region after sending loyal forces to Abbas and confining its authority to parts of the occupied West Bank.
Abbas responded by forming an emergency government based in the West Bank, but Hamas officials refused to recognize him. The political and geographical schism, as well as the collapse of a series of reconciliation agreements, has since prevented any appearance of a functioning democratic process.
A race for succession behind the scenes has been under way for a long time in the Palestinian Authority, and Abbas said a few years ago that he did not want to run for president again.
But there was no evidence on Friday that he intended to resign, and the election announcement was met with some skepticism because Abbas had already announced plans for elections that never took place.
In February 2011, for example, Abbas announced that the elections would be held in September of that year, but Hamas rejected the idea and they were canceled.
Hamas welcomed Abbas’ new decree, saying in a statement that it was eager to make the elections “successful”. He added that it is necessary to work to create an atmosphere for free and fair elections, and that Hamas has shown what it called great flexibility in recent months, “because it believes that the decision belongs to the people”.
Still, some analysts expressed significant doubts about whether Abbas was interested in allowing the elections to take place, and the two rival Palestinian factions have not publicly explained how they will conduct the elections while the West Bank and Gaza are governed by separate groups.
“These decrees are just a maneuver to buy time,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Abbas adviser and a member of Washington’s Middle East Policy Institute. “The deep suspicion between Abbas and Hamas still exists, and the reasons that have prevented elections in the past have not yet changed.”
Nabil Amr, a Fatah veteran and former information minister, described the election decree as “a preliminary practical step”. But he warned that the Palestinians who would have to lose in the elections could work to stop them. “There are Palestinians whose privileges will be withdrawn if the elections are held, so they will object to that,” he said.
It is not yet clear whether Hamas will accept the authority of the court that Abbas plans to establish to judge electoral disputes, how freely candidates will be able to campaign and whether Abbas will agree to allow Hamas security forces, which he considers illegitimate, to protect voting booths in Gaza.
Israel may also decide to ban the Palestinians from voting in East Jerusalem annexed to Israel – a potential obstacle that Abbas said earlier would prevent the elections.
Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said the Palestinian authorities would ask Israel to refrain from “placing impediments” on the Palestinian vote in East Jerusalem, but added that he hoped the Israelis would do it anyway.
Both Hamas and Fatah are convinced that they need to hold elections, said Ghassan Khatib, a political scientist at Birzeit University in the West Bank, but it was unclear what kind of election it would be.
“Is it a real election or a staged election that will renew the legitimacy of the same old guards?” he said. “My fear is that it will be a type of election that will not make any changes – except that it will give the superficial impression that we are more legitimate now.”
More broadly, he wondered how the election could be held after such a long and bitter split.
“How are we going to conduct an election in which the political system is completely divided into two separate electoral systems, two judicial systems, two security devices, two of everything?” Mr. Khatib said. “That is the question that everyone is asking.”
Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Mohammed Najib from Ramallah, West Bank.