By the end of 2022, Palestine had witnessed eleven electoral processes, including four general elections, with the most recent one in 2006, and seven local election processes, with the most recent one in 2022, in addition to the complementary elections stemming from them. Below, is a full description of each of these electoral processes.
In 1996, the first general elections for electing the President of the National Authority and members of the Legislative Council were conducted in accordance with Law No. (13) of 1995 and its amendments, which adopted a majority system (districts) and individual nomination, where individuals were elected depending on the number of candidates per district. The elections were conducted under the supervision of the Central Elections Commission (CEC), which was established as per a Presidential Decree issued on December 21, 1995, with Mr. Mahmoud Abbas as its Chairman.
The second presidential elections were conducted on January 9, 2005, as per Law No. (13) of 1995, under the supervision of the CEC led by Dr. Hanna Nasir as its Chairman, which oversaw the second legislative elections held on January 25, 2006, organized as per Law No. (9) of 2005.
On January 15, 2021, the President issued a Decree that stipulated conducting the Palestinian general elections, casting ballots on May 22, 2021 for the legislative elections and on July 31, 2021 for the presidential elections. On April 30 of the same year, right after closing the nomination phase, the Palestinian political leadership decided to postpone the elections “Until all conditions necessary for conducting the elections throughout the Palestinian territory are met, especially in the Capital of Jerusalem” as stipulated in the Presidential Decree on postponing the electoral process.
As for local elections, the first time was conducted over several phases under the supervision of the Higher Committee for Local Elections (HCLE) headed by the Minister of Local Government, which conducted four phases of local elections between 2004 and 2005. Later, the mandate and jurisdiction of organizing local elections was transferred to the Central Elections Commission (CEC), which called for the second local elections during 2010 and 2011, which was otherwise postponed over two successive years.
On July 10, 2012, the Council of Ministers issued a decision for conducting local elections in the West Bank on October 20, 2012, planning to cast ballots in 272 out of 353 local authorities included in the decision. This was complemented with another decision of the Council of Ministers for completing the electoral process, where complementary elections were held on December 22, 2012 with the participation of 81 local authorities, followed by a third complementary elections beginning of June 2013, with the participation of 22 local authorities.
On January 31, 2017, the Council of Ministers issued a decision for conducting local elections in all local authorities on May 13, 2017. The local elections were conducted in 326 out of 391 local authorities in the West Bank. Later, the Council of Ministers issued another decision for conducting complementary local elections on July 29, 2017, with the participation of 32 local authorities.
The Council of Ministers called for conducting the fourth local elections over two stages; the first was held on December 11, 2021, and the second on March 26, 2022, which included the West Bank governorates only. The first stage of elections was held in 154 out 376 eligible local authorities. As for the second stage, it included 102 local authorities, and ballot casting took place in 50 local authorities.
