Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse, Photo by Makbula Nassar - Wikimedia.org If all goes according to plan, the Palestinians will be holding legislative elections on May 22, followed by presidential elections on July 31. These would be the first national elections to take place since 2006. A recent report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) looked at the number of convicted terrorists on the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) ballot and raised questions about possible political, budgetary and legal consequences. The authors Katherine Bauer and Matthew Levitt noted that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has also nominated candidates with criminal records for terrorism (Ahmed Sadat and Khalida Jarrar) and that the main faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Fatah, has Marwan Barghouti pondering moving forward with an independent list, despite being incarcerated in Israel serving multiple life sentences for various murders.