Four of the parties, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Palestinian People's Party and the Palestinian National Initiative, submitted separate lists to the Central Elections Committee to run in the elections, while the Palestinian Democratic Union (FDA) decided to participate on the ruling Fatah party's list. [FDA and People's Party will have a joint list.]
The collapse of talks risks undermining the potential gains the left stood to make in the elections, which are the first since 2006 and take place against a backdrop of waning support for the previously dominant Fatah and Hamas factions.
A well-informed source told Middle East Eye that the committee’s statement was not issued by consensus, but rather by representatives of the Palestinian People's Party, due to "bilateral" differences with the PFLP. In a statement, the organising Follow-up Committee for Dialogue Among Democratic Forces implicitly accused the PFLP of thwarting the dialogue and reaching an agreement.
The source said that the PFLP had insisted on obtaining the first six seats on the unified list, and had put forward criteria for the ranking of the five parties based on what vote percentage the parties received in the previous elections in 2006, as well as the number of cadres of each faction and the number of detainees in Israeli prisons.
Source: Palestine elections: Talks collapse over formation of joint left-wing list
