Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · PNGO Portal · 2016
PNGO 2016 analysis arguing that municipal elections should include Gaza as well as the West Bank — not doing so normalizes a democratic double standard where the PA applies elections selectively, and local governance should be treated as a separate track from national reconciliation.
PNGO 2016 analysis arguing that municipal elections should include Gaza as well as the West Bank — not doing so normalizes a democratic double standard…
Editorial summary — the full article is published by PNGO Portal and cannot be reproduced here. What follows is an account of the subject written afterwards, not the original text.
The Palestinian municipal elections of 2016 — which proceeded in the West Bank but excluded Gaza — underscored the governance contradiction at the heart of Palestinian politics. Having Gaza participate in the municipal elections alongside the West Bank would have required a level of coordination between Hamas and Fatah that the Palestinian Authority was unwilling to facilitate. The exclusion of Gaza from the elections meant that an entire half of Palestinian territory had no pathway to elected local governance, while the democratic process was applied selectively to the population the PA governs. This selective democracy — elections where the PA governs, appointed or unrenewed councils where Hamas governs — normalized a governance double standard that served neither Palestinian democratic development nor the cause of reconciliation. The analysis calls for including Gaza in future municipal elections and argues that local governance elections can and should be treated as a separate track from national reconciliation, since local services affect daily life regardless of which political faction controls national politics.
Topic: Palestinian Politics — municipal elections · Palestinian democracy · Gaza exclusion · Hamas · reconciliation — Text © PNGO Portal — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source