Country profile
Palestine
Asia · Western Asia
PS · PSE
- Capital
- Ramallah
- Population
- 5,483,450
- Area
- 6,220 km²
- Democracy index
- 4
- Regime type
- Failed State
Events
Ballots from Palestine
The latest elections, referendums, and opinion polls from Palestine. Community totals are not official results.
Live(1)1 published ballot
Classification
Democracy profile
The score and regime label are assigned by Porto Voto using our in-house democracy index and classification framework, not ratings from governments or external agencies.
Democracy index
4/100
Regime type
Failed State
Palestine remains classified as a failed state due to a profound collapse of centralized governance, acute territorial fragmentation, and the pervasive impact of recent military conflict. The Palestinian territories are bifurcated into distinct, non contiguous regions under separate, functionally compromised administrations. In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority exercises severely degraded administrative control, operating under extensive external fiscal constraints and systemic domestic unpopularity, with no national elections held since 2006. In the Gaza Strip, despite an internationally brokered ceasefire late last year, institutional infrastructure is almost entirely decimated. Planned transitional governance frameworks, including the international Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, remain largely stalled in planning phases or physically sidelined outside the territory. Meanwhile, armed factions such as Hamas refuse full disarmament, and foreign military forces maintain physical control over extensive zones. Fundamental civil liberties, judicial independence, and democratic accountability mechanisms are practically nonexistent on the ground, with millions of residents living in makeshift, unsanitary encampments devoid of basic public utility provisions, security guarantees, or functional rule of law institutions.
Last evaluation:
How we classify regimes →World Factbook
Country background
A concise introduction to Palestine to put local ballots in context.
The Gaza Strip has been under the de facto governing authority of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) since 2007 and has faced years of conflict, poverty, and humanitarian crises. Inhabited since at least the 15th century B.C., the Gaza Strip area has been dominated by many different peoples and empires throughout its history; it was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century. The Gaza Strip fell to British forces during World War I, becoming a part of the British Mandate of Palestine.
Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt administered the newly formed Gaza Strip; Israel captured it in the Six-Day War in 1967. Under a series of agreements known as the Oslo Accords signed between 1993 and 1999, Israel transferred to the newly-created Palestinian Authority (PA) security and civilian responsibility for many Palestinian-populated areas of the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank. In 2000, a violent intifada or uprising began in response to perceived Israeli provocations, and in 2001, negotiations to determine the permanent status of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip stalled.
Subsequent attempts to re-start negotiations have not resulted in progress toward determining final status and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel in 2005 unilaterally withdrew all of its settlers and soldiers and dismantled its military facilities in the Gaza Strip, but it continues to control the Gaza Strip’s land borders, maritime territorial waters, cyberspace, telecommunications, and airspace. In 2006, HAMAS won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council election.
Fatah, the dominant Palestinian political faction in the West Bank, and HAMAS failed to maintain a unity government, leading to violent clashes between their respective supporters and HAMAS's violent seizure of all PA military and governmental institutions in the Gaza Strip in 2007. Since HAMAS's takeover, Israel and Egypt have enforced tight restrictions on movement and access of goods and individuals into and out of the territory. Fatah and HAMAS have since negotiated a series of agreements aimed at restoring political unity between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank but have struggled to enact them.
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and the Israel Defense Forces periodically exchange projectiles and air strikes, respectively, threatening broader conflict. In 2021, HAMAS launched rockets into Israel, sparking an 11-day conflict that also involved other Gaza-based militant groups. Egypt, Qatar, and the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process negotiated ceasefires, averting a broader conflict.
Since 2018, HAMAS has coordinated demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel security fence. HAMAS has also stood by while other militant groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, fought brief conflicts with Israel, most recently in August 2022 and May 2023. On 7 October 2023, HAMAS militants inside the Gaza Strip launched a combined unguided rocket and ground attack into Israel.
The attack began with a barrage of more than 3,000 rockets fired toward Israel from Gaza, and included thousands of terrorists infiltrating Israel by land, sea, and air via paragliders. Militants attacked military bases, clashed with security forces mostly in southern Israel, and simultaneously infiltrated civilian communities. During the attack, terrorists carried out massacres and murdered civilians, including torture, acts of abuse and rape, a massacre at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re'im, as well as kidnapping approximately 240 civilians, including men, women, children, and soldiers.
These attacks were followed soon after by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) air strikes inside Gaza. The next day, Israeli Prime Minister NETANYAHU formally declared war on Gaza. The IDF on 28 October launched a large-scale ground assault inside Gaza that is ongoing as of April 2024.