Electoral Amendments or a Restructuring of the Palestinian Political Scene?

Despite all the headlines that accompanied the announcement of the new amendments to the Palestinian electoral law, which were presented to the public as a step towards expanding political participation, enhancing democratic representation, and making room for youth and women, a careful reading of these amendments leads to a completely different conclusion... The issue is not in the slogans raised or in the language used to market the decision, but rather in the nature of the amendments themselves, the political outcomes that will result from them, the timing of their introduction, and most importantly, in the body that issued them and the legitimacy of its continued ability to amend the basic laws regulating Palestinian political life... For many years, the Palestinian political system has been living in an unprecedented exceptional state, where the elected legislative council has been absent from its supervisory and legislative role, and the legislative process has turned into one carried out through decrees issued by the President of the Palestinian Authority based on exceptional provisions in the basic law to address cases of necessity that do not tolerate delay... However, the question that arises today with strong force is... Does the Palestinian situation still live under a temporary exceptional condition that justifies the continued resort to this legislative tool? Or are we facing a reality where the exception has turned into a norm, and the issuance of laws and their amendments and the reformation of the legal and political system is done unilaterally in the absence of the institution that the Palestinian people have exclusively granted the right to legislate...? Any serious discussion about the recent amendments must start from precisely this point... The problem lies not only in the content of the amendments but also in the manner in which they were issued... Elections are supposed to be the natural entry point for restoring democratic life, whereas it seems that the rules for these very elections are being drawn and reshaped outside the legislative institution that is supposed to discuss, approve, and subject them to broad societal and political dialogue. Therefore, the question is not just whether these amendments are good or bad, but also whether it is acceptable for the laws regulating the Palestinian political system to continue to be shaped through individual decisions in the absence of the body that originally has the exclusive right to produce legislation...

As for the content, the first thing that draws attention is the decision to increase the number of members of the Palestinian legislative council to two hundred members... It is difficult to find a convincing political, administrative, or legislative justification for this significant increase. The problem faced by the Palestinian political system over the past decades has never been a lack of deputies, and the legislative council has not been incapacitated due to a shortage of seats, nor has the political system's crisis been related to weak numerical representation... Quite the opposite, the problem has always been in the paralysis of institutions, political division, and the absence of regular democratic power circulation... Therefore, the increase in the number of members does not seem to be a response to a real national or legislative need, but rather an attempt to redistribute political shares on a broader scale and to include as many forces, figures, and lists as possible into the upcoming legislative institution...

Notably, this increase comes alongside the designation of elected legislative council members as ex-officio members in the Palestinian National Council, which raises a profound political and national issue... The Palestinian legislative council is an institution established within the framework of the Palestinian Authority and is tasked with legislation, oversight, and representing citizens within the Palestinian territories. On the other hand, the Palestinian National Council is the historical parliament of the Palestinian people within and outside the homeland, and it is the institution that is supposed to represent millions of Palestinians in the diaspora as well as those within the homeland. There is a fundamental distinction between the two institutions in terms of function, specialization, and source of legitimacy... Therefore, transforming membership in the legislative council into an automatic bridge for membership in the National Council raises legitimate questions about the future representation of Palestinians abroad and whether the National Council is gradually being reduced to the results of elections held within the framework of the Palestinian Authority instead of maintaining it as a comprehensive framework for all components of the Palestinian people wherever they may be...

This issue becomes even more complex when examining the mechanism of the planned elections themselves and the implications it has for the nature of Palestinian national representation. If we hypothetically assume that elections will indeed be held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem despite the political, security, and exceptional conditions prevailing in these areas, the voters participating in the electoral process will practically be limited to Palestinians residing within this geopolitical geography, while millions of Palestinians in the diaspora will remain excluded from the entire electoral process. Here, a fundamental paradox arises that is difficult to overcome, as the members of the legislative council who will be elected within the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem will, according to the proposed amendments, become ex-officio members of the Palestinian National Council, i.e., the institution that is supposed to represent the entire Palestinian people inside and outside the homeland. Thus, a significant portion of the National Council members will be representatives elected by a specific geographic segment of the Palestinian people without the participation of the other components in selecting them, while Palestinians in the diaspora are deprived of contributing to electing members of a National Council that is supposed to represent them directly. More contradictorily, this same logic will persist even if separate elections for the diaspora are organized in the future, as Palestinians abroad will be able to elect their representatives without the Palestinians within the homeland participating in selecting them, leading to a fragmentation of the source of electoral legitimacy and dividing the representative body into separate electoral districts that are not unified by a common electoral framework... From the perspective of the democratic concept of national representation, the principle should be that every Palestinian, regardless of residence or geographic presence, has the right to contribute to selecting the entire national institution that claims to represent him or her, or at least to select all its elected members within a unified mechanism... The fact that part of the people elects representatives who automatically become representatives of all, while the other part is prohibited from participating in their selection raises serious questions about the nature of the representation that this model will produce, and about its compatibility with the idea of the National Council as the parliament of the unified Palestinian people in all its locations, and not a parliament of separate Palestinian gatherings each with its independent electoral legitimacy...

Equally serious is the issue of reducing the electoral threshold to just one percent. In democratic systems, the threshold is not set arbitrarily, but to achieve a balance between political plurality and the need for institutions capable of functioning and stability. Therefore, most contemporary democracies adopt much higher thresholds, as experiences have shown that overly lowering the threshold leads to the fragmentation of parliaments and turning them into gatherings of small squabbling blocs. In the Palestinian case, such a low electoral threshold opens the door for dozens of small lists to gain limited parliamentary representation, which makes the upcoming council more vulnerable to fragmentation and division than ever before.

However, the deeper problem lies in the fact that this threshold may encourage the return of family, tribal, and regional phenomena to the core of the electoral process. When the required threshold to enter parliament becomes exceedingly low, it will not be difficult for a large family, a local gathering, or a limited regional alliance to secure one or more seats within the council. At that point, competition becomes based on social and familial weight more than on political programs and national visions. And instead of developing party life and enhancing organized political work, we may find ourselves facing a council that includes dozens of representatives from disparate local and familial forces, which undermines the national character of parliamentary work and reinforces narrow factional tendencies.

As for lowering the age of candidacy to twenty-three, it has been presented as a victory for youth; however, this proposal ignores a fundamental reality: legislation is not a field for experimentation, and membership in the legislative council is not a program for preparing future leaders, but a national, political, and legal responsibility of the highest levels. A deputy does not merely raise slogans or represent a specific age group, but participates in drafting laws, approving public budgets, overseeing the executive authority's performance, and making decisions that affect the lives of the entire community... It is difficult to ignore the reality that the majority of those who are twenty-three years old are at the beginnings of their professional or academic lives and have not yet had sufficient opportunity to acquire the political, administrative, or legal experience that qualifies them to bear these responsibilities. Yes, there are notable exceptions, but legislation is not built on exceptions. What is required in a member of the legislative council is not just enthusiasm, energy, and a desire for change, but also experience, wisdom, and the ability to comprehend the complexities of public work. Therefore, renewing political elites does not occur through continuously lowering ages, but through opening opportunities for young competencies to gradually take on responsibilities and acquire the necessary experience before reaching the higher legislative positions.

In conclusion, bringing all these amendments together leads to a political outcome that cannot be ignored. Increasing the number of seats, lowering the electoral threshold to the lowest possible level, merging legislative council membership with national council membership, and expanding opportunities for small, family, and local lists are all steps that seem to be heading towards reshaping the Palestinian political map on new foundations. People may differ about the goals of these amendments and their outcomes, but it is hard to deny that they will produce a more fragmented and less clear political scene in terms of power balances and political blocs.

Hence, the real question that must be asked today is not only who benefits from these amendments but also who has the right to approve them in the first place. Democracy does not begin on voting day alone, but begins much earlier, when the rules that govern the political process itself are the result of national consensus and effective constitutional institutions, not from decisions issued in the absence of the body that has been granted by the people the right to legislate. If the production of electoral laws and their amendments continues in this same manner, then the discussion will not be about the shape of the upcoming democracy, but about how much remains of the democratic foundation upon which the entire political process is built.