Article 37 of the 2003 amended Basic Law says that if the PA presidency becomes vacant, the speaker of the Legislative Council temporarily assumes presidential powers for no more than 60 days, during which a direct election is to be held. The text establishes an interim procedure; it does not name a permanent successor to Mahmoud Abbas.
What Article 37 says
The law lists death, resignation accepted by two-thirds of the Legislative Council and legally determined incapacity approved under the article as conditions that make the presidency vacant. In those cases, the Council speaker temporarily performs presidential duties while an election is held. Article 37 of the Basic Law states the 60-day limit and election requirement.
Why applying the rule is disputed
The rule depends on a functioning Legislative Council and an identifiable speaker. The Council elected in 2006 has not operated as a normal legislature for years. In 2018, the Supreme Constitutional Court issued a decision dissolving the Council and calling for elections within six months. The legal consequences of that decision for Article 37 and the council speakership are contested in PA politics; the Basic Law itself does not explain how its succession clause should operate after that later institutional rupture.
The PA’s constitutional offices also differ from leadership roles in Fatah and the PLO. Abbas has held senior posts across these institutions, but a change in the presidency would not by itself decide who leads Fatah or the PLO. Likewise, Hamas’s 2006 legislative victory gives it a political record, not an automatic constitutional succession right.
What Hamas can and cannot claim
Hamas could seek political influence through an election or a negotiated institutional arrangement, but neither route follows automatically from Article 37. Any transfer of authority would depend on the legal process, the ability to conduct elections and agreement over the rival administrations and security forces. The 2011 reconciliation agreement called for national elections, but that timetable was not carried out. The agreement text makes clear that elections were a proposed step rather than an established succession mechanism. Read the election and takeover chronology for the institutional divide that any future transition would have to address.