Hamas won 74 of 132 seats in the January 2006 Legislative Council election, against Fatah’s 45. The result began a divided political period: Hamas formed a government, fighting between Hamas and Fatah escalated, and Hamas seized Gaza by force in June 2007. No national PA election followed; Mahmoud Abbas postponed elections scheduled for 2021.
The 2006 vote and its aftermath
The Central Elections Commission’s final tally, reproduced by the UN, gave Hamas’s Change and Reform list 74 seats and Fatah 45. The remaining seats went to smaller lists and independents. International observers described the vote as competitive. The Quartet’s response conditioned relations with the Hamas-led government on nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of prior agreements; the policy was not simply a single international boycott.
Following months of political deadlock and armed clashes, Hamas forces took control of Gaza in June 2007 and expelled PA security forces there. President Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government and appointed an emergency government based in Ramallah. Since then, separate administrations have governed Gaza and areas under PA administration in Judea and Samaria, obstructing national elections and unified oversight.
Why the 2021 elections were postponed
On 15 January 2021, Abbas issued a decree scheduling legislative elections for 22 May and a presidential election for 31 July. On 29 April, he announced postponement, saying the vote could not proceed without arrangements for Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem to participate. A UN experts’ statement records the stated reason and the indefinite postponement. The Central Elections Commission had registered more than 2.5 million eligible voters, according to the PA’s later report to the UN.
The Jerusalem voting dispute was real, but the decision also left the PA without a renewed electoral mandate. The United States State Department’s human-rights report records that the last national elections had been in 2006 and that Abbas’s four-year term had expired in 2009. A new election date has not been held since the cancellation.
What the sequence shows
The 2006 result did not produce a stable transfer of power. Armed rivalry split institutions geographically, and the 2021 postponement extended the absence of national electoral accountability. These facts explain why election rules and security control remain entangled in PA politics.