Hamas and other Palestinian political factions opposed to the ruling Fatah government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are exploring the formation of a broad electoral coalition before historic polls late this year. Husam Badran, the national relations official for Hamas, told Al Jazeera that the movement has recently held bilateral and collective meetings with groups that include Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the National Initiative and Democratic Reform, the Mohammed Dahlan-led breakaway Fatah faction. Dahlan and Democratic Reform have previously been firm critics of Hamas.
Abbas in a July 9 decree called for Palestinian legislative elections to be held on November 28. They would mark the first such vote since January 2006. Campaigning is set to launch on November 6 despite ongoing complexities, including Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, escalating violence in the occupied West Bank and Israeli restrictions in occupied East Jerusalem.
But before formal campaigning, major Palestinian factions have begun political manoeuvring, according to factional leaders and political analysts. Hamas has decided to participate in the elections but prefers to run within the widest possible national bloc, Badran said. He added that Hamas’s decision to contest the elections and the political moves it chooses to make would not be influenced by potential Israeli objections to the movement’s participation in the vote.
This is an inherent right for all factions,” Badran said. Conversely, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, as Fatah is formally known, is preparing to enter the race on its own. Munther al-Hayek, a spokesperson for Fatah, told Al Jazeera the “organisational bases of the Fatah movement refuse to participate with Hamas in a single list while the door remains open to alliances with the rest of the factions”.
Nevertheless, al-Hayek described the upcoming elections as aimed at unifying the Palestinian political system. He noted that the elections were taking place within the framework of existing agreements, adding that Abbas had formed a committee to engage in dialogue with different factions to facilitate the electoral process across all Palestinian territories, including in the Gaza Strip. The Democratic Reform current, led by Dahlan, has emerged as a key player in shaping any potential coalition list.
Osama al-Farra, a leader in the faction, revealed to Al Jazeera that a delegation led by Dahlan held a meeting on Monday with a Hamas delegation headed by Khalil al-Hayya. Al-Farra confirmed that Democratic Reform decided to participate in the legislative elections, favouring the formation of a “broad national alliance” comprising factions, professionals and community figures. Dahlan, a native of Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp, served as Gaza security chief under Yasser Arafat in the 1990s when his crackdowns on Hamas activists led some to call the enclave “Dahlanistan“.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
