Research paper: The consequences of cancelling the local elections / young researcher Ghassan Al-Zaanin

The local bodies count as a fundamental pillar for practising the political process at the level of the local community, in addition to the administrative tasks and the multiple services covering life's different sides; and the effectiveness of these bodies in performing their role gives an indicator of the quality of the standing political system. Local-administration experts consider local governance one of the foundations of the modern state's system, democratic thought, and the principle of popular sovereignty.

The results of the local-body elections in Palestine held in 1976, in the period of the Israeli occupation, formed a challenge to the will of the occupation, which tried through them to entrench the occupation and create an alternative leadership; but the results ran counter to the occupation's will, with the victory of the national figures rejecting the occupation and supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization. The local elections thereby stood as one of the tools of struggle our people employed in contending with the occupation and affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination. (Muqbil, 2010, p. 69)

But after the signing of the Oslo agreements in 1993, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, and the formation of the Legislative Council in 1996, the Council enacted the laws organising the work of the Palestinian local bodies, among them the law of “elections of the councils of the Palestinian local bodies”, and in another law, number (1) of 1997, under the name “the Palestinian local bodies”.

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The repercussions of cancelling the local elections

The views contained in the paper express only the view of their author, and do not necessarily express the view of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies