t is hard to overstate the significance of the moment when Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced there would finally be legislative and presidential Palestinian elections, the first in 15 years.
It was a chance for Palestinians to finally have a say about their stale and out of touch leadership: Abbas himself won a four year term in 2005 and has extended that for 12 additional years.
There was feverish speculation any vote could even see a solid rapprochement between the occupied West Bank, where Abbas’s western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule and Gaza, ruled by Hamas militant group.