“It’s especially important in this time of upheaval not to rush into things.”
Ramallah, December 14 – The leader of a governing entity now nearing nineteen years into his four-year term responded to concerns over his administration’s refusal to stand for any plebiscites since 2006 by citing worries that such an endeavor would be open to manipulation by malign international actors such as Vladimir Putin, a spokesman for the leader disclosed today.
Nabil Aburdeineh, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters at Abbas’s “Mukat’a” presidential compound on Thursday that the main impetus for refraining from holding presidential elections since 2005, and legislative elections since 2006, involves fears for the integrity of the process and result, given the widespread allegations that Russia had interfered in elections in the US and elsewhere over the last decade and perhaps longer.
“President Abbas holds election integrity as one of his highest values,” explained Aburdeineh. “We cannot risk Palestinian democracy by simply holding elections and not expecting malfeasance from certain international quarters. Better to avoid elections altogether until the concern has dissipated to a significant degree, by which time they might even have become irrelevant.”
“It’s especially important in this time of upheaval not to rush into things,” he continued. “The violence in Gaza, tension with Israeli settlers, and the prospect of our Fatah faction being assigned administration of a liberated Gaza Strip even though we can’t even govern the fiefdoms we have here – those are what occupy the Palestinian people right now. We cannot add to that mental and logistical load by calling elections in the near future. It would be the height of irresponsibility.”
Observers noted other factors that weigh in the continual postponement of any possible Palestinian elections, most prominently the utter loathing most Palestinians harbor for Abbas’s Fatah faction, which they see as puppets of Israel, as corrupt, as violently repressive, and as incompetent. Those perceptions have given Hamas, which has run Gaza since driving out Fatah in 2007, better electoral prospects among Palestinians still under Fatah rule under all opinion polls. Palestinians also see Hamas as corrupt, violently repressive, and incompetent, but not as puppets of Israel, a set of characteristics familiar to Palestinians, if not actually offering a better option in terms of governance, transparency, checks on official power, freedom, economic development, or something called “hope.”
A short distance away, in Israel, voters have the opportunity to participate in frequent elections. This affords them the opportunity to choose among hundreds of corrupt, narcissistic, power-hungry manipulators instead of getting stuck with the same one for almost two decades.
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