Abbas is a heavy smoker who will turn eighty-six this month. Elected by a landslide in 2005 on promises of reform and transparency, Abbas is now in the sixteenth year of a four-year term. Polling shows that about three-quarters of Palestinians believe Abbas should step down. A prostate cancer survivor, Abbas is reported to have a heart condition and is rumored to suffer from stomach cancer. In 2018, he visited a Baltimore hospital and was hospitalized for tests.
Abbas declared that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)—of which Hamas is not a constituent group—would pick his successor, ruling out Hamas as a beneficiary. Abbas then dissolved the Palestinian Legislature in 2018 and stacked the judiciary with loyalists in 2019, further consolidating power in the executive.
By concentrating autocratic power in his own hands, Abbas heightened the risk of a crisis if he is suddenly incapacitated. Furthermore, Abbas has not groomed a successor within the ranks of the PLO or his own Fatah faction. There are a handful of possible candidates; However, Abbas has not elevated any one of them, laying the table for an ugly power struggle upon his departure.
In the absence of such a leader, it is possible once Abbas is gone that Hamas would launch a violent campaign to take over the West Bank, as it did in Gaza in 2007. Yet even if there were snap elections, the pervasive corruption and abuse of the Abbas era have created a situation in which Hamas would likely come to power through elections. According to September elections polling, Hamas would make a clean sweep in Palestinian elections.