News Analysis: Suspending municipal elections deepens internal Palestinian split

Thursday's decision of the Palestinian High Court of Justice to suspend holding the municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza deepens the internal split between Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, analysts said.

The municipal elections were scheduled to be held on Oct. 8, which would be the first local elections in the Palestinian territories, except east Jerusalem, since Hamas violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

On June 21, the cabinet of the Palestinian consensus government called for holding the local elections in 391 municipal councils in the West Bank and 25 councils in the Gaza Strip. However, on Thursday, the Palestinian High Court in the West Bank city of Ramallah decided to suspend the elections.

The court will hold a special session later this year to decide the fate of the local elections. All indications show that the court would indefinitely postpone the elections. The main reason for the decision is that east Jerusalem is not included in the coming local elections.

Right after the high court's ruling, Hamas claimed the decision "political and illegal," and Hamas spokesman in Gaza Sami Abu Zuhrin said the court's ruling "was incorrect." In the meantime Fatah accused Hamas of committing a massacre against democracy.

Hani al-Masri, a political analyst in Ramallah, told Xinhua that postponing or cancelling the local elections "has no doubt pushed for more deepening of the internal feuds and splits that has been going on between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for ten years."

"I believe that cancelling the local elections indefinitely would postpone holding the parliamentary and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories," said al-Masri, adding "the court's ruling would cause damage to the Palestinian national cause and would severely deepen the internal split."

He went on saying that instead of suspending the municipal elections in the Palestinian territories, the rivals should have worked together on preventing the dangers that threaten the national accordance, and both should have intensified their efforts to end the internal split and gain a real and practical unity.

Before the court's ruling, endless deep differences and feuds have been going on between rival Hamas and Fatah. Since the announcement of holding the local elections, both have traded arguments on every tiny detail related to the elections, such as Fatah opposition to cancelling some of Fatah lists in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hamas movement accused the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) of exerting a series of security pressures on the movement and its supporters and leaders in the West Bank to weaken the movement in the territory.

In fact, every time there is a political development in the Palestinian territories, Hamas and Fatah have been trading endless accusations against each other since 2007, the beginning of the internal split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Akram Atallah, a Gaza-based political analyst, asserted that the Palestinian situation went through a new crisis after the High Court's ruling to suspend holding the local elections, adding that "the coming days would witness deeper differences between Fatah and Hamas."

"Apparently, we are living in the worst cases and every time we say that we are close to ending the internal split, we discover that we are sinking deeper into crisis," Atallah said, adding "it seems that we are passing through roads of crisis that will never end, mainly in the Gaza Strip."

The last parliamentary elections were held in the Palestinian territories in 2006, when Hamas movement for the first time won the elections. However, the leader of Fatah Party Mahmoud Abbas won the presidential elections in 2005 and succeeded late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The last local elections were held in both Gaza and the West Bank in 2004 and 2005, which weren't completed in three municipalities in the Gaza Strip. The PNA held the local elections only in the West Bank in 2012, because Hamas, ruler of the Gaza Strip, boycotted them.

Since the beginning of the internal Palestinian split, the two rivals, Hamas and Fatah, have been unable to end their internal split and feuds, although both have signed a series of reconciliation agreements and understandings in Saudi Arabia, Cairo and Qatar.

Abdul Majid Sweilem, a West Bank political analyst, said that the high court's ruling unveil the large gap between Fatah and Hamas, adding "cancelling the local elections (on Oct. 8) is the start of cancelling Palestinian democracy."

"Unfortunately, over the past ten years, the Palestinian democracy had turned from a real democracy to a democracy that is controlled by the mood and the agendas of the Palestinian factions and political powers," he said, adding "this reality unveils a Palestinian failure to achieve a real and practical democracy." Endit