The Palestinian Central Elections Commission announced on Saturday that it had received applications from six electoral lists on the first day of registration for the Legislative Council elections scheduled for November 28, to be held simultaneously in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The committee said in a statement that it began receiving nomination applications at its headquarters in Al-Bireh in the central West Bank, and its office in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, noting a “large turnout of candidate lists” at its two offices.
The committee stated that the lists that submitted their nomination applications on the first day were “The Palestine Future Coalition, Justice and Construction, Unity and Democratic Change, the National Initiative, New Path, and Labor.”
The committee explained that the nomination period will remain open for 12 days, until 4 pm on October 7, stressing that submitting a nomination application does not mean final acceptance of the list, as applications are subject to review and verification to ensure that they meet the legal requirements and that the required forms, documents and attachments are complete, and that the decision will be made and officially communicated within three days of submitting the application.
According to the committee, candidacy for membership in the Legislative Council is done only through electoral lists, and individual candidacy applications are not accepted, provided that the number of candidates on the list is not less than 16 candidates and not more than 132 candidates.
The committee stressed the need for the lists to adhere to the minimum representation of women as stipulated by law. A decree issued by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last August stipulated that each list must include at least one woman among the first three names, and one woman in each of the next four names.
According to the timetable approved by the Election Commission, the election campaign will begin on November 6, while the early voting for the security forces will take place on the 26th of the same month.
On July 9, the Palestinian president issued a decree setting November 28 as the date for legislative elections in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the first of their kind since 2006.
The Palestinian Legislative Council has been inactive since 2007 following the Palestinian division, and the Supreme Constitutional Court issued a decision to dissolve it in 2018.
Legislative and presidential elections scheduled for 2021 were previously cancelled, following a decision by President Abbas to postpone them, justifying this by the lack of Israeli approval guaranteeing the participation of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.
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