Abbas delays Palestinian elections to September 2027

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree Friday postponing legislative and presidential elections to September 11, 2027, extending a wait for voters that already stretches back to the 2006 legislative vote.

Why it matters: The delay keeps Abbas's Fatah-dominated authority in power without a vote for more than two decades, just as the authority's future role in Gaza under the US-brokered ceasefire plan is being decided.

Data as of Sunday, October 11, 2026: Fox News article opened and read in full (AP contributed to the report); Al Jazeera's Palestinian-reactions video page opened but carried only a short text summary. The Israeli and PLO accounts of why the vote was delayed are each side's own claims.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree on Friday pushing legislative and presidential elections back to September 11, 2027, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. Abbas was elected to what was meant to be a four-year term in 2005, and Palestinians last chose a legislature in 2006, when Hamas won a majority. The PLO’s executive committee, which Abbas heads, said Israel had blocked election materials and international observers from entering Gaza; Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar rejected the claim as an attempt to evade responsibility.

Hamas welcomed the postponement as a step in the right direction, per Fox News. The delayed vote had threatened Abbas’s hold on power, with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a faction led by former Fatah security chief Mohammed Dahlan discussing an unlikely alliance against him. The decision comes as the Palestinian Authority’s future role in Gaza remains unsettled under last year’s US-brokered ceasefire plan.

Abbas delays Palestinian elections to September 2027

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