**Mahmoud Abbas, the 90-year-old Palestinian Authority president since 2005, continues to rule by decree more than 17 years after his original term expired.** On October 10, 2026, he issued a decree postponing legislative elections originally set for November 28, 2026, and scheduling combined presidential and legislative votes for September 11, 2027, citing Israeli restrictions on Gaza and the West Bank plus security conditions. This followed weeks of internal Fatah divisions, factional talks in Cairo, and Western pressure from France and others for reforms ahead of state recognition efforts. Polls show persistent high public dissatisfaction, with roughly 79% of respondents in an August 2026 survey calling for his resignation. Succession arrangements position Hussein al-Sheikh as interim vice president under a 2025 constitutional declaration, though legal disputes persist over the mechanism. These factors, combined with Abbas’s history of repeated delays and the absence of scheduled votes before late 2027, shape trader assessments of near-term departure timelines amid ongoing internal and external pressures.