Mahmoud Abbas Celebrates 18 Years of Four-Year Term as Palestinian President

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday celebrated 18 years in his position, a remarkable achievement considering he was elected for a four year term and that, according to PA law, he cannot hold office for more than two terms.

The last PA elections were held on Jan. 9, 2005. While the PA Central Elections Committee reported there were 1,760,481 registered voters, only 802,077 actually cast their vote after the rival Hamas faction boycotted them, monitoring group Palestinian Media Watch reported. Of those, only 501,448 voted for Abbas – less than 30 percent of the electorate.

According to PMW, Abbas is “just another dictator” who refuses to uphold the law and “relinquish the power he illegitimately usurped in 2009 at the end of his four-year term and consequent to his refusal to hold new elections.”

“True to the anti-democratic dictatorial values, the PA under Abbas has similarly refrained from holding general elections to the PA parliament since 2006. In those elections, the majority of the votes cast were for Hamas, an internationally designated terror organization,” the report said.

Following international pressure, Abbas in Jan 2021 agreed to call general elections for the PA parliament in May followed by elections for the position of PA Chairman two months later. However, Abbas scrapped elections as soon as he realized that Hamas would likely win the elections.

A poll conducted last month by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research found that not much had changed in a year and a half, and that if Palestinian presidential elections were held at the time of the survey, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would defeat PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, with 54 percent of the vote compared to 36 percent for Abbas.

The same poll found that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians — 72 percent — support the actions against Israel of terrorist groups such as Lions’ Den.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told the Haaretz daily in a report published Tuesday that a series of Israeli sanctions approved last week by the security cabinet against the government in Ramallah would lead to the PA’s collapse.

The sanctions include withholding nearly $40 million in tax revenues that Israel collects on the PA’s behalf and give the money to the families of Israelis killed in Palestinian terror attacks.