The top-tier leadership group of the Palestine Liberation Organization– average age 70 – is up for election for the first time in over two decades, when hundreds of delegates attend a West Bank convention this week.
It should be a chance to revitalize the Palestinian national movement at a historic low point and start talking about potential successors to 83-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Instead, some critics, even within the PLO, say Abbas is presiding over a staged event to give his increasingly authoritarian rule a veneer of legitimacy. Others challenge the timing, saying the rift with powerful non-PLO Hamas, the terrorist group that rules Gaza, must be resolved first.
Abbas supporters portray the meeting of the PLO parliament, once envisioned to represent Palestinians everywhere, as a closing of ranks behind Abbas. They say Abbas needs such backing in his political battle with the Trump administration, viewed by most Palestinians as blatantly pro-Israel.
The PLO was founded in the mid-1960s as an umbrella for Palestinian factions. From the start, it was dominated by the Fatah movement, now headed by Abbas.
On paper, the PLO remained the "sole legitimate representative" of all Palestinians, recognized by more than 100 countries. Yet power quickly shifted to the Palestinian Authority which, backed by foreign aid, provided services for millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, Fatah steadily lost ground to archrival Hamas. In 2006 Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and a year later it seized control of the Gaza Strip in a military coup, driving Abbas loyalists out and effectively splitting from the Palestinian Authority.
Today, the PLO is widely seen as an empty shell but remains relevant as a political umbrella that could be revived. Even Hamas wants to join it but Abbas has balked, fearing another takeover.
Starting with an Abbas speech Monday, the Palestinian National Council is set to hold four days of meetings in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Later in the week, delegates elect a new PLO Executive Committee, the top decision-making body, with 18 members.
Such an election was last held at a PNC plenary session in 1996 in Gaza. In 2009, a smaller PNC gathering replaced six members who had died or fallen ill. Most of the current members are in their 70s to 90s.
Fatah gets three seats. Small factions get one each for a total of seven, and independents get eight.
The outcome of the vote is largely preordained because of Fatah's dominance and because the Palestinian Authority is now the PLO's main paymaster. Delegates and their organizations depend on Abbas' goodwill, meaning they will likely vote for names passed around on the convention floor.
More of the same?
About two-thirds of Executive Committee members are likely to be replaced, said Mohammed Ishtayyeh, an Abbas adviser.
Fatah already picked its members – Abbas, of course, and stalwarts Saeb Erekat and Azzam al-Ahmed. Erekat, a former negotiator with Israel, suffered a major health crisis last year, undergoing a lung transplant. PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah is among the Abbas loyalists expected to be elected in the independent category.
Hamas will predictably be absent. Hamas lawmaker Moussa Abu Marzouk accused Abbas and Fatah of engaging in "unprecedented unilateralism."
The second-largest PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is also staying away to protest the lack of broad representation.
There is widespread apathy in the West Bank about the Fatah-run event in which aging leaders, nearly all of them men, make decisions behind closed doors. It is largely perceived as irrelevant to the lives of Palestinians. Candidates have not bothered to campaign, and there are no posters in the streets announcing the event.
"You cannot claim that there is a renewal process," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a longtime No. 2 in the PLO who was sidelined in 2015 after criticizing Abbas.
The Palestinian president, who has had an approval rating of about 30% in recent polls, gets to shore up his legitimacy with a new Executive Committee. He needs a two-thirds majority for major decisions, and while the outgoing group was compliant, the required majority was not always assured. One member had died and others were absent at times because of illness or travel.
The PNC is meeting at a time when Hamas is raising its leadership profile with mass protests on the Gaza-Israel border. By comparison, Abbas' longstanding strategy – statehood through U.S.-led talks with Israel – is seen as a failure and Abbas himself seems to be edging away from it.
Abbas has said little about Gaza. Instead, he has been increasing financial pressure on Gaza in hopes of getting Hamas to accept his demand to return all authority to him.
The battle over who will eventually replace Abbas is likely to be fought in Fatah, not in the PLO Executive Committee.
Abbas' critics have said he is taking a dangerous chance by refusing the name a successor, as there is no clear path of succession. Abbas has adamantly refused to plan ahead, even though he has suffered recent health scares that prompted him to keep a cardiologist at his side.
The role of any Palestinian leader in a post-Abbas era is bound to shrink if peace efforts remain deadlocked. Instead of negotiating the terms of Palestinian statehood, a successor could be busy improving schools or garbage pickup in the West Bank.
