When Elections Are Held So That Nothing Changes!

In the Palestinian case, elections are no longer held to answer the question: who gets chosen?
Instead, they are held to answer a more modest and far more dangerous question: how do we manage the absence of choice and how do we divert attention from the main issues of "national consensus and general elections" by preoccupying people with less important or even illusory matters.

What happened in the local council elections in the West Bank is not a passing detail, but a concentrated expression of a wider state that I have previously described as "suspended legitimacy and paralyzed action." When comprehensive national legitimacy becomes paralyzed, the need for it does not disappear; rather, it is dismantled into lower levels where partial alternatives are designed to be controllable and manageable.

In this sense, the recent local elections seemed like an attempt to compensate for the significant absence through small "legitimacies" that were pre-defined. This began with the adoption of an exclusionary approach that ensures the dominance of one color, through an electoral law that, in principle, excludes the participation of active political and social forces via conditions that affect citizens' constitutional rights. This occurs at a time when public interest is noticeably declining, both in terms of registration and voting, compared to previous rounds that did not originally enjoy widespread enthusiasm.
It seems that this trend is not limited to local elections in the context of a broader restructuring of the political system. It has previously extended to professional unions, preparing for the "representation" of these in the National Council, according to the same exclusionary approach, instead of general parliamentary and presidential elections, in the context of a genuine national consensus that ensures broader public participation and transforms elections into not only an entry point for renewing eroded legitimacies but also a lever for genuine national revival, not a tool for reproducing exclusion.

Engineering "Consensus" Instead of Competition and Judging Programs

Let’s take the facts as they are: More than 50% of local bodies did not witness any elections at all.
The reason is the engineering of "consensus" in a way that drains it of its meaning. This "consensus" was not the result of free community dialogue but rather a clever formulation to suspend competition and separate service from its political dimension linked to enhancing resilience as a fundamental criterion for evaluation and a justification for the existence of national institutions. When a single list is imposed, there is no longer anything decisive; rather, what is declared only far from the ballot box.

In Nablus, competition was not explicitly prohibited, but was emptied of its conditions until it became merely a theoretical possibility. In Ramallah, which has long been presented as a model of plurality, elections disappeared entirely, not due to an inability to hold them, but because competition itself was no longer a desired option.

We are not witnessing a technical malfunction here but a redefinition of the public sphere from an open space to a managed field with pre-designed results, serving a political course that reproduces itself. This does not absolve other political and societal forces that have aligned with this framework, whether through formal participation or indifference.

The bitterly comic paradox is that all of this occurred under the title of "enhancing local democracy"; a democracy that does not require elections in half of the cases, nor programmatic competition in the other half, nor surprises in either.

Local Governance as a Paralyzed Alternative to Politics

In this context, local councils are no longer just service institutions but transform into tools within a larger equation, the essence of which is: how is a living society managed through paralyzed political tools? And how is the appearance of legitimacy maintained in the absence of the conditions for producing it?

Here, the local intersects directly with the national. The paralysis of Palestinian action at its peak seeps into the lower levels. Local governance, instead of being an entry point for revival and the restoration of politics, turns into a laboratory for its management while it is emptied of its essence.

Disorder of National Priorities

All of this may seem like a secondary detail in the face of an open war, unprecedented pressures, and complete political blockage. But societies are not only measured by their ability to withstand external pressure; they are also measured by their ability to maintain their internal cohesion and renew their political tools. Here lies the dilemma of the disorder of national priorities. Instead of rebuilding comprehensive national legitimacy, opening the public sphere, and enhancing trust, investment is made in managing controllable margins that, nonetheless, are incapable of producing genuine action.

Restoration of Priorities and Action

The problem, ultimately, is not in whether elections were held or not, nor in councils being formed in this way or that, but in the disorder of the national priorities themselves. At a moment when the Palestinian people face their most serious challenges—"an open war on existence, political blockage, and erosion of representation"—the focus is on managing controllable margins instead of engaging with existential questions, so that elections become a tool for revival, not a means of reproducing control.

Restoring national priority does not mean abolishing the local; rather, it means liberating it from being a diminutive alternative to politics and restoring its original function as a space to enhance resilience, build trust, and empower the community.

Palestinian action will not be restored through a sudden decision, but through the accumulation of tangible achievements that re-connect citizens with politics as a tool of influence, not just a formal procedure. It begins with opening the public sphere, respecting plurality, stopping the engineering of representation, and leading to a comprehensive democratic path that gives legitimacy its meaning, not just its form. Continuing to manage the reality as it is will not result in revival but in further silent erosion.

Elections Without Competition...And the Question of the Political System

Here arises the question that can no longer be postponed: What kind of political system do we want?
Do we want a system that reproduces the dominance of one color, despite its demonstrated incapacity and failure? Do we want to close the space for the emergence of arguments and currents capable of correction and accountability? Or do we want a system that opens the door to true plurality, not as a luxury, but as a condition for the community's cohesion and resilience?

The fear of plurality is sometimes presented as a concern for unity, but in reality, it produces fragility. A society that is not allowed to self-correct from within becomes more prone to disintegration at the first test.

In the Palestinian context, we cannot ignore that Israel is systematically working to dismantle this front. However, what is even more dangerous is that some of what is happening internally objectively aligns with this goal, as the public sphere is closed, representation is undermined, competition is tamed, and alternatives are excluded.

Strengthening the internal front is not achieved by canceling politics, but by reviving it; not by preventing alternatives, but by opening the way for them; not by reproducing failure, but by empowering the community to overcome it.

Ultimately, the danger lies not only in what is imposed upon us but also in what we accept. The bet is not on elections without choice, but on the collective ability to restore action, reorder priorities, and transform margins into cumulative paths for change.

In such a moment, pluralism is not a political luxury but a condition for protection from collapse, and opening the public sphere is not an operational option but the only path to building a true national revival. Either the people's will to choose is restored as the essence of politics, or this vacuum is filled by managing incapacity until it turns into fate. At that point, the danger will lie not in the absence of results, but in solidifying the very incapacity as a permanent system.