It’s hard to see how this latest wheeze can work out well for Abbas:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — President Mahmoud Abbas revised Palestinian election laws on Sunday to favor his moderate Fatah Party, his latest attempt to sideline Hamas since the Islamic militant group seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.
Under the decree, Palestinians will now vote solely for party lists, while district voting will be eliminated. Hamas swept parliamentary elections last year in large part because it had a strong showing at the district level, while Fatah candidates split the party’s vote.
The decree also requires candidates to recognize the Fatah-dominated Palestine Liberation Organization as the ‘’sole, legitimate representative’’ of the Palestinian people.

If they were, they wouldn’t need to pull this stunt. Many people mock the Bush Doctrine’s commitment to promoting liberty, but, if this is the alternative, it doesn’t seem terribly “realist”. In the Palestinian Territories, the “extremists” are the mainstream and the “moderates” represent nobody. Hamas is unlovely but massively popular, Fatah is unlovely and unpopular.