Hamas Wins the Palestinian Elections

On 25 January 2006 Palestinians voted in only the second legislative elections of the Palestinian Authority’s existence, and the first contested by Hamas. The Legislative Council had been enlarged from 88 to 132 seats, filled by a mixed system of 66 national proportional-representation seats and 66 district seats. According to IFES’s Election Guide, some 1.04 million of 1.34 million registered voters cast ballots — a turnout of roughly 78 per cent — and Hamas’s Change and Reform list won 74 seats on 44.45 per cent of the national vote, against 45 seats and 41.43 per cent for Fatah, with the rest scattered among smaller lists and independents.

International observers found the vote credible. The joint NDI–Carter Center delegation, led by former US president Jimmy Carter, reported that election day was generally peaceful and the process well administered “under the difficult circumstances of ongoing conflict and occupation,” while faulting inadequate voting arrangements in East Jerusalem, the use of Palestinian Authority resources to benefit Fatah, and Hamas’s participation while continuing to advocate violence. Hamas campaigned less on armed struggle than on corruption and misrule after a decade of Fatah-led government.

The result collided with the fact that the United States and the European Union had designated Hamas a terrorist organization, in 1997 and 2003 respectively. The Quartet — the US, EU, UN, and Russia — conditioned engagement with any Hamas-led government on its renouncing violence, recognizing Israel, and accepting previous agreements; Hamas declined, and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas was sworn in as prime minister in March 2006. The United States and European Union suspended direct aid to the PA, and Israel froze the transfer of customs revenues it collects on the PA’s behalf, plunging the Authority into fiscal crisis.

After months of factional tension and armed clashes, Fatah and Hamas formed a short-lived unity government under the Mecca Agreement in March 2007. It collapsed that June, when a week of fighting left Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip; President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the unity government and declared a state of emergency, leaving a Fatah-led cabinet in the West Bank. In September 2007 Israel declared Gaza a “hostile entity” and, with Egypt’s cooperation, imposed the land, air, and sea blockade that has defined Gaza ever since. The schism proved permanent: the elected council never functioned again, and no Palestinian legislative elections have been held since.