With the publication of the French (European?) initiative (ideas?) seeking to offer an alternative political approach to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, as opposed to the purely security-oriented conditional American-Israeli approach, the idea of Palestinian elections is once again on the agenda. While no one with any sense would attribute the dangerous escalation in conditions to the domestic Palestinian issue of elections (or lack thereof), it is important not to dismiss the idea out of hand without giving it the proper attention it deserves. Elections, after all, may be the handle that would offer a way out of the current deadlock. The argument put forth by many in the Palestinian Authority for rejecting elections (at least at present) may be summarized as follows:
Many members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and civil society have been lobbying for and publicly demanding the holding of legislative and presidential elections in Palestine for at least the last two years, or since the “expiration date” of the PLC itself in January 1999. Another public call was for the long-overdue municipal or local government elections that have been put on hold mainly because of the previous Israeli government’s refusal to implement agreements pertaining to further redeployments and to ensure territorial contiguity in the Palestinian territory. Even sectoral elections in many associations and unions have been put on hold as a result of “abnormal” conditions, thus weakening an important factor in the democratization and nation-building process. The prolongation of the “transitional phase” as determined by the Declaration of Principles signed in 1993 (and subsequent agreements) and the failure of the peace talks on permanent status issues have created a legal debacle best described as a political and democratic “limbo” in Palestine. The debate over “elections under occupation” was never resolved, but rather served to extend a period of uncertainty that debilitated the duly elected institutions and further undermined Palestinian domestic realities and cohesiveness. With the reemergence of the debate at the initiative of the Europeans, even during these most critical and difficult of times, the argument for internal empowerment and legitimacy still holds true. Beyond that, and as a means of addressing and redressing the current situation, the argument in favor of elections may be summarized as follows:
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