Is feeble Fatah the real reason for Abbas's Palestinian election postponement?

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's decision, announced in April, to indefinitely postpone elections could rekindle tensions between his secular Fatah movement and Hamas Islamists, piling pressure on Abbas to set a new timeline for the first Palestinian elections in 15 years.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. POOL/AFP/File

In late April, Abbas declared that legislative and presidential polls set for May and July respectively, should not be held until Israel guarantees voting can take place in annexed east Jerusalem.

But even before the Palestinian president announced the delay, Abbas' critics forecast that he might use the complex Jerusalem issue as a pretext to put off a vote in which Fatah risks losing ground.

Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research, says the 85-year-old Palestinian president had now confirmed those suspicions.

"It is clear that this delay is more about the expectation of the outcomes of the elections rather than the issue of Jerusalem."

Shikaki described Abbas's unilateral decision to postpone the votes as destructive.

"It is not Israel who defeated the Palestinians, it is Abbas. He is the one making this decision," Shikaki says.

Failed attempt to bring Fatah and Hamas closer

Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority based in the occupied West Bank, called the polls as part of a push to mend ties with its long-term rival Hamas, which runs Gaza.

But as the election approached, Hamas was seen as better organised than Fatah, which also faced challenges from splinter groups backed by powerful former insiders.

All Palestinian factions insist that voting must be allowed in east Jerusalem, home to some 300,000 Palestinians, 

Hamas and other Abbas critics have said that hinging elections on whether Israel allows voting in Jerusalem gives the Jewish state an unacceptable veto over the Palestinian right to vote.

Following the postponement, Hamas accused Abbas of perpetrating a "coup" against their partnership.