What’s at stake as Palestinians go to the polls for the first time in years
Displaced Palestinians near their tents at sunset in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, on 12 December 2025
Shatha Yaish and Ibtisam Mahdi report in +972 on 24 April 2026:
On Saturday, Palestinians will head to the polls for local elections spanning municipalities and village councils across the occupied West Bank, and a single city in the besieged Gaza Strip. The elections mark the first return to the ballot box since staggered local votes in the West Bank in 2021 and 2022; in Gaza, meanwhile, residents will be voting in formal elections for the first time in 20 years, when the last Palestinian legislative election took place.
In the West Bank, where there are over 1 million eligible voters, 365 electoral lists are contesting seats across 183 local bodies, according to the Central Elections Commission. Two voting systems are in play: proportional representation for municipalities, and a majoritarian system for village councils.
Most lists are running independently of major parties, while a small number are aligned with the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. Due to new regulations imposed by Abbas, which require candidates to commit to the program of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), none are explicitly affiliated with Hamas.
Candidates have focused on familiar promises: improved municipal services, infrastructure development, and greater transparency in local governance. But the competition is uneven: In dense urban centers like Nablus and Ramallah — the latter being the PA’s administrative hub — only one list is running, effectively securing victory by default. By contrast, in Ya’bad, a town near Jenin with one-tenth the population of Nablus, 12 lists are competing for 13,000 eligible voters.