A CRUCIAL election is looming in May. No, not that one, vitally important as it is for Scots everywhere. I’m talking about the Palestinian national elections, the first in more than 15 years and in which one million potential new voters would be able to take part.

Just as in Scotland where all eyes are now focused on May 6, so Palestinians have two significant forthcoming dates marked in their political calendar.

The first is May 22 when they are scheduled to vote for the Palestinian Legislative Council and the second is set for July 31, when they will perhaps decide on the new President of the Palestinian National Authority (PA).

I say “scheduled” and “perhaps” because already doubts have been raised about whether both will go ahead after senior Palestinian officials insisted that the ballots cannot be held without Palestinians in East Jerusalem taking part in them.

Israel, which has just held its own election, has in the past repeatedly denied Palestinian attempts to hold such elections in East Jerusalem on the basis that it considers the entirety of Jerusalem to be its sovereign capital. Any Palestinian election in Jerusalem would in effect challenge Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the entire city.

Israel of course has no shortage of coercive tools at its disposal to try to prevent Palestinian Jerusalemites from taking part in the elections. Threatening to revoke their residence permits for example would be just one.

Even if the election were to get the go-ahead, Israel has also been dragging its feet over granting access to an EU election observation mission in the occupied Palestinian territories ahead of any vote in May.

According to the EU Representative Office in Jerusalem, despite continuous contact with the Israeli authorities over the past five weeks, a reply granting access has not yet been received.

For its part Israel has often argued that past Palestinian attempts to hold votes for president and parliament have flopped largely because of the inability of rivals Fatah and Hamas to agree on terms.

There is truth in this, for it’s clear that Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has dragged his own heels in getting any new election moving. The decision to hold the latest one has only come 15 years after Abbas was elected for what was meant to be a four-year term.

And there in a nutshell is the dual challenge ordinary Palestinians face in terms of exercising their democratic will.

On the one hand sits an occupying power in the shape of Israel determined to prevent them having access to the democratic process. And on the other their own Palestinian leadership, in the form of Abbas and his cadres, complicit in sharing Israel’s interest in maintaining the status quo.

In other words, Abbas, a subordinate leader, suits Israel and the PA can continue to blame the Israelis for many of their own failings.

For let’s not forget that the PA was only supposed to exist for five years while Palestinians transitioned to statehood, but still that state remains as elusive as ever.

As many of today’s new generation of Palestinian activists point out, it’s precisely that paralysis and status quo, that now poses the biggest threat to Palestinians’ hopes and aspirations for a state of their own.

Sure, the Israeli occupation presents – as it always has done – the major obstacle, but so too does the lethargy and complacency within the ranks of the PA and the monopoly on power-sharing of the two main Palestinians parties Fatah and Hamas.

In a society where the average age is 21 most Palestinian leadership positions are taken up by those with an average age of 71. As Salem Barahmeh, the executive director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, recently pointed out, such are the age and structural constraints placed on prospective candidates running for office – a fee of $28,000 and being aged 28 or over – it’s virtually impossible for a new generation to make its political mark or have its voice heard in office.

That this all suits the PA and Israel goes without saying. That it also appeals to many international donors who only care about having a Palestinian leadership that will not push back against their agendas also further entrenches the status quo.

How many of us remember what happened in the wake of that last Palestinian legislative election back in 2006? To begin with the EU and the US were strong advocates of Palestinian democracy but low and behold when the democratic outcome of those elections went against their interests it was an altogether different story.

With Hamas’s victory and its refusal to endorse international demands such as recognising Israel, both the EU and the US then did all they could to undermine the democratically elected Palestinian government and inflicted substantial damage on the fledgeling Palestinian democratic and state-building project.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that the Palestinian cause has more than ever been forgotten or ignored of late? 

And this too despite Israel’s continuing illegal settlement programme and repression.

As the possibility of elections near, it’s understandable that some might see such obstacles as being too great for any real positive change to take place. This though should not prevent all parties involved from trying.

Not to do so would shamefully be to ignore the tremendous hunger for change and burning desire among a young generation of Palestinians for a reformed political system that is democratic and representative.

To that end the international community must play a fresh and genuine role in ensuring new elections go ahead and that democracy is served and succeeds. This time too, the likes of the EU and the US need to respect the outcome rather than their “preferred” result.

More than ever there is a pressing need to ensure that the Palestinians have new avenues for political engagement both at home and abroad. That the PA and parties like Fatah and Hamas have a pivotal role to play in any political reform is also a prerequisite.

The coming elections, should they go ahead, would be the obvious place to start.
These past years especially, the world has neglectfully allowed the Palestinians to drift further into the political wilderness. It’s time once again to make their legitimate cause for statehood a priority and bring them back into the global political embrace.