Follow Mar. 17, 2021 Mahmoud Abbas waited for more than a decade to call for elections to the Palestinian Authority’s Legislative Council, the presidency, and the PLO’s National Council. Ironically, those planned elections are likely to backfire, and cause irreparable harm to Palestinian democracy. That’s not because elections and democracy are bad for Palestinians. But the timing is terrible: the elections could jeopardize the post-Trump restoration of ties with the U.S., could throw the peace process into an even deeper freeze and could lead to Fatah’s disintegration. Furthermore, the elections are scheduled to be held in the midst of a raging pandemic which Abbas is badly mishandling: failing to both secure vaccines by his own efforts for Palestinians, and failing to make the case forcefully enough that Israel, according to Geneva Conventions, UN Security Council Resolutions, and human rights codes, is responsible for securing the vaccine for Palestinians still living under Israel’s occupation.