Palestinian elections for more than 400 municipal and local councils are scheduled to take place on October 8 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
It appears as if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was dragged into the elections without sufficient foresight. Presidential and parliamentary elections have not been held for over a decade, ever since Hamas surprised the Palestinian Authority and the experts by winning the 2006 parliamentary election.

Mock council elections were held in the West Bank in 2012. Hamas decided not to participate and Fatah was so unpopular that cynics said it managed to lose to itself in some of the cities. Four years have passed since then. Abbas decided to gamble and called new elections, perhaps in the expectation that Hamas would once again decide to sit them out.

But Hamas surprised him and announced that it would participate. In the West Bank, Hamas is likely to run in joint lists with politicians who don’t necessarily identify with it, but that will be enough for it to pose a real threat to the political standing of the PA.

Read the full article at Haaretz.