Elections delayed: A generation of Palestinians is being denied its right to choose - opinion

What pains me most about the postponement of the Palestinian elections is that I know the faces of those who were waiting for them. I spoke with them, heard their dreams, and saw how the prospect of voting restored some of their confidence in themselves and their country. They were not expecting a miracle. They wanted a simple right: to choose their representatives and have a say in their future. Then the door was closed.

Based on my close observation of the political process leading up to the decision, I hold Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh and Jamil Mezher primarily politically responsible for pushing for this postponement. This does not absolve others of responsibility. But it prevents those who drove the decision from hiding behind vague phrases about “national consensus” and “creating the right conditions.” Palestinians have the right to know who closed the door, and why. Those responsible have a duty to answer.

In my assessment, Sheikh worked persistently to prevent the election decree from being issued last July. Once it was issued, he continued his efforts to cancel the date it had set. He succeeded in securing the postponement. The painful irony is that his success in closing the path to elections followed a series of failures in areas that should have opened a way out of the crisis.

Internal dialogue within Fatah and national dialogue were used to justify the postponement. Yet these are two processes the vice president helped lead over many years. Numerous capitals hosted lengthy meetings without achieving reconciliation or ending the division.

How does the failure of dialogue become a reason to deny people elections? Why should citizens pay the price for their leadership’s failures and then be denied the democratic means to hold it accountable?

As for Palestinian-American relations, where is the breakthrough ordinary citizens can see? And as for civilian coordination with Israel, ask the worker cut off from his job, the student arriving late to university, or the employee who leaves home before dawn without knowing when he will arrive.

The occupation bears direct responsibility for the checkpoints, restrictions, and humiliation. But the Palestinian official entrusted with coordination must also be held accountable for the results he has achieved in protecting people’s interests. It is not enough for the office to remain in place while citizens’ lives become harder every day.

I have known Sheikh since his release from prison in the early 1990s, after many years of detention. At the time, I headed Fatah’s youth movement in Jerusalem and served in its leadership across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was a member of Fatah’s Higher Movement Committee: well liked, cheerful, and close to ordinary people and the youth movement’s activists. We had a strong relationship, as he did with many leaders of our generation.

I do not know what these long years have done to the leader we once knew. But I know that the young man who once defended his generation’s right to participate has now become, in my assessment, one of the leading figures denying that same right to a new generation.

These young people are present within Fatah, too. In recent weeks, I saw its members and activists eager to stand as candidates and participate. According to the information I followed, more than 430 people in Hebron alone applied for a place on the movement’s electoral list, including many young grassroots leaders. This was a clear expression of a desire to take part in political life, and of talent waiting for an opportunity, even within the organization to which the vice president belongs.

As for Mezher, deputy secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who holds a leading role while Secretary-General Ahmad Sa’adat remains imprisoned, his responsibility raises a question no less painful: How can an organization with such a substantial political history and popular following accept a role in closing the path to political renewal?

For me, that question has a face and a name: Nidal al-Rabadi.

He was my friend and schoolmate, and a supporter of the Popular Front. During a demonstration in Jerusalem in 1988, a bullet struck him and he fell beside me. We were 15. Lying on the ground, he looked at me and spoke his last words: “Don’t leave me.”

I have never left him behind in my memory. To this day, I keep his photograph in my home beside those of my children, and I cannot hold back my tears whenever his name is mentioned.

When I think about Mezher’s position on the elections, I remember Rabadi and ask: How do we honor that generation by denying its children the right to choose? What future do we preserve for their sacrifices if young people remain outside our institutions, waiting for permission to participate from those who have held their positions for decades? I invoke Rabadi because politics, to me, means responsibility toward people’s lives and toward those who died believing their sacrifices would open a better path for future generations.

The Popular Front was once the second-largest force in the Palestine Liberation Organization, with a clear grassroots presence during the First Intifada. In my assessment, that presence has diminished considerably over the years. Recently, I have witnessed young people and activists moving from its ranks to other political groups and electoral lists, including Masar Jadid.

This phenomenon extends beyond any single organization. Many of my colleagues in Masar Jadid and I came from other political movements. We brought our history and convictions with us, but we sought a space where we could work, make a difference, and participate. When organizations fail to make room for their members’ abilities, people look for other doors. Postponing elections will not resolve this alienation. It will deepen it.

The cost of waiting is visible in almost every Palestinian household. Employees receive delayed portions of their salaries, workers have lost their incomes since October 2023, and families borrow money to pay rent and buy food. I have met people overwhelmed by loans, checks, and obligations they can no longer meet. Fear of creditors and the courts has become part of their daily lives.

In education, the financial crisis affects both regular schooling and teachers’ lives. When a teacher must seek additional work or sell goods on the street to support a family and afford the journey to school, the future of all our children is at risk.

In Gaza, families – many displaced into tents – are approaching a third winter since the war began. Mothers and fathers spend their days searching for the bare minimum of food, water, and medicine for their children.

Amid these conditions, I spoke for hours every day with young men and women from Gaza by phone, Zoom, and social media. Their education, knowledge, and capacity to think and act impressed me. I was moved by the hope in their voices simply because a political organization existed that allowed them to express their views and participate.

For them, elections offered a chance to become decision-makers in a society accustomed to treating them as recipients of aid. How painful it is to see these abilities buried once again beneath a closed bureaucracy and leaders who refuse to make room for them.

There are Palestinians approaching 40 who have never once voted in a national election. There are leaders who have held their positions for most of these young people’s lives. This imbalance cannot be corrected through more waiting or through dialogue that continues for years without restoring people’s rights – especially when the cost of postponement extends beyond our internal affairs.

French President Emmanuel Macron invested significant political effort in supporting recognition of Palestinian statehood and advancing an international path toward a two-state solution. Those efforts were linked to Palestinian commitments to reform, renew democratic legitimacy, and hold elections.

When we postpone this vote again, we confront our partners with a difficult question: How can they defend support for Palestinian institutions that deny their own people the opportunity to choose their representatives?

I cannot say with certainty that donor countries will freeze their assistance. But I fear this decision will weaken their willingness to honor their commitments and make it harder to defend support for us before their parliaments and taxpayers.

When our institutions and public services depend on that support, international trust becomes a direct Palestinian interest. Squandering it places an additional burden on citizens who are already suffering. Even so, I still see an opportunity to correct course, and I place cautious hope in it.

President Mahmoud Abbas has the authority on the Palestinian side to bring the date forward. Macron can use his diplomatic influence to support that correction and link the reform process to a clear electoral timetable in the near future.

We may have missed the opportunity to hold elections on November 28, 2026, but that does not justify waiting until September 11, 2027. I call for presidential and legislative elections to be brought forward to no later than March 2027, with preparations beginning immediately and conditions created that allow all Palestinian lists and political forces wishing to stand to carry out their preparatory work and activities on the ground.

Elections alone will not solve all our crises. But they give people a peaceful means of demanding accountability, open institutions to new talent, and rebuild trust between citizens and their leadership. Every day we postpone this opportunity makes it harder to recover.

At Masar Jadid, we will continue reaching out to everyone who can help. We will use the political, administrative, and legal means available to advocate for an earlier date. We will participate in every serious national dialogue that leads to a clear outcome: returning the decision to the people.

I hold Sheikh and Mezher politically responsible for pushing for the postponement. I call on Abbas to correct the decision he signed, and I urge Macron to help protect the opportunity that remains.

Thirty-eight years ago, Rabadi told me: “Don’t leave me.”

Today, in those words, I hear the voice of an entire Palestinian generation waiting for someone to open the door.

We have a duty not to leave them behind.

Samer Sinijlawi is a Palestinian political figure from Jerusalem and the founder and president of Masar Jadid (New Path), a Palestinian political movement advocating democracy, nonviolence, reform, and regional peace.