Hamas and the Legislative Elections

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

In 1995 Hamas said that it would not take part in the Palestinian elections held at the start of 1996, because the Oslo Accords had set a ceiling for them, that anyone who participated was thereby giving prior consent to the agreement, and that whoever won would find themselves compelled to act in accordance with the agreement’s requirements. As for the presidential elections held in 2005, the reasons that led Hamas not to participate were not clear, even though one of Hamas’s leaders said on television that “these elections have been tailored for Abu Mazen.” As for the upcoming legislative elections, Hamas’s representative, at his press conference held on 12 March 2005, indicated that the movement would enter the electoral arena out of its concern for the interest of the Palestinian people. Answering a question about the Oslo ceiling, the representative said that Oslo had been superseded and that there were new facts that the blessed intifada had given birth to.

In 1996, voices rose demanding that Hamas and the Islamic movement in general contest the elections, even though the internal and external circumstances at the time did not allow for a major victory at Fatah’s expense. This demand rested on several justifications: the first was that, under the election law, a member of the legislative council was not obliged to support Oslo, nor obliged to back it during deliberations and voting; the second was that removing Arafat and the Authority born of Oslo would not be possible except by force of arms, which was rejected on the Palestinian side, so it was better to seek political platforms that would support the platforms of armed resistance; the third justification rested on the historical record of the Palestinian opposition, namely that it chases after the Palestinian leadership with critical, objecting, and treason-charging statements, only to accept, after a while, what it had rejected. Hamas rejected these justifications, as did all the factions of the Palestinian opposition.

It is notable that the Palestinian left did not hesitate for long before practically accepting the Oslo Accord and the agreements that followed from it, and most factions accepted involvement with the Authority — covertly at the leadership level, and directly at the level of public posts allotted to the factions on a quota basis. The Islamic movement, for its part, took the Palestinian Authority as a negotiating intermediary with Israel with regard to truces or periods of calm. All the opposition factions, across their various stripes, proved unable to come together around a single program as an alternative to Oslo, and were unable to gather effectively except around the Authority’s own table.

…-ll suffering from stagnation. The Oslo Accord is still in place, and every initiative put forward during the intifada springs from it, since it is a broad set of principles upon which a great many details can be built. The roadmap, which Mr. Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly declared he holds fast to, is committed to the principles of Oslo and the Taba Agreement, and explicitly calls for working to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism — that is, of the Palestinian resistance factions. The meaning is that Oslo exists in text, in spirit, in international backing, and in implementation, and whoever fails to see this is deluding himself.

Beyond the fact that Oslo stands right before our eyes, there are essential points important to bear in mind when thinking about the Palestinian Legislative Council:

First: this council is, in truth, the Palestinian council primarily responsible for implementing the agreements with Israel, and it holds legislative powers. Its draft laws do not become law except with the signature of the President of the Authority, regardless of how long the draft law sits in his drawer. Arafat signed only a small number of these drafts, because they conflicted with the agreements with Israel or challenged his personal authority. Note that there exists a joint Palestinian-Israeli legal committee that serves as the reference authority for ruling on whether draft laws conform to Oslo.

Second: the Legislative Council now has power over the Prime Minister, but no authority over the President of the Authority. This power will vanish into thin air if America decides to abolish the premiership. America created the post of prime minister for the Palestinians in order to bypass Arafat, and specifically in favor of Mahmoud Abbas, and now there is no longer any justification for the post.

Third: the Legislative Council has no authority to oversee the security services that are supposed to pursue resistance fighters and resistance factions. These services report directly to the President of the Authority and are not subject to the confidence of the Legislative Council; their members have previously beaten members of the Legislative Council, and no one held them accountable. So what are the opposition factions to do, if they come to control the Legislative Council but do not control the security services that implement the security agreements with Israel?

Fourth: the President of the Palestinian Authority alone controls the matter of negotiation with Israel, without any involvement of the Legislative Council. And if the President of the Authority wishes to lend legitimacy to whatever agreements he reaches with Israel, he will make use of the institutions and bodies of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The conclusion is that whoever wants to contest the Palestinian legislative elections is essentially trying to have a voice that he can make heard to the various parties, and especially to the Palestinian people. But if a party wants to rid itself of Oslo and its consequences through peaceful means, the only avenue open to it is to gain control of the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. A majority in the Legislative Council will have an effect at both the internal and external levels, but it will not be large enough to produce new equations that go beyond Oslo. The President of the Authority can pursue a new policy, different from Oslo, that returns the Palestinian people to the truth and halts the moral and emotional attrition resulting from the manipulation of the Palestinian people’s feelings, hopes, and aspirations. A majority in the Legislative Council would have the ability to clarify the facts before the people, and the ability to mobilize them to bring about turning points in the general Palestinian course, which would help in ridding the country of the Oslo Accord — if, that is, that majority decides it does not want Oslo.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حماس وانتخابات التشريعي” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.