The Palestinian Authority’s new constitution: A roadmap to statehood?
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York on 26 September 2024
Aseel Mafarjeh reports in The New Arab on 17 February 2026:
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has unveiled an ambitious timeline for institutional transformation.
The plan, issued in a presidential decree last week, includes a temporary constitution drafted by October, elections for the Palestine National Council (PNC) in November 2026, and a political system restructured to move from authority to statehood.
While the draft is now public for a 60-day comment period, Palestinian analysts and political figures are sharply divided. Many question whether it represents genuine reform or a tactical response to external pressure that sidesteps a deeper structural crisis.
The legitimacy question
The timing has raised immediate credibility concerns, with Abbas framing the constitutional process as foundational to statehood claims, particularly as international recognition accelerates. Eleven additional countries formally recognised Palestine in September, bringing the total to 159 UN member states, or over 80% of the international community.
However, this also creates an uncomfortable paradox: the Palestinian Authority is drafting a constitution without meaningful democratic input, analysts say, deferring electoral legitimacy to a later stage.
Dr Ashraf Okka, an Israeli affairs analyst, articulates the core problem as one of a Palestinian state constructed through top-down constitutional drafting that cannot resolve what he calls the institutional “duality of representation”.
Article 11 of the draft constitution, for example, mentions that “the establishment of the State of Palestine does not diminish the Palestine Liberation Organisation in its capacity as the sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people. “This duality has affected and continues to affect the wider national condition, the unity of the Palestinian people, and the unity of Palestinian national decision-making,” Okka explains to The New Arab. “It creates confusion at the level of national references for both factions and citizens.”
For decades, the PA has encroached on PLO institutional prerogatives, fragmenting decision-making authority. “There has been a clear usurpation by the Palestinian Authority over the PLO and its institutions over the past 15 years,” Okka notes. “The Palestinian Authority and Foreign Ministry represent us in regional and international forums, but sometimes it’s the National Council and sometimes the PA. This contradiction in political and diplomatic work confuses the unity of decisions and the unity of Palestinian public discourse.”
Such fragmentation has tangible consequences. In previous parliamentary elections, 36 competing lists emerged, signalling mass alienation from established institutions.