Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Friday announced dates for the first Palestinian elections in more than 15 years, setting legislative polls for May 22 and a July 31 presidential vote.Abbas’s Fatah party, which controls the Palestinian Authority based in the occupied West Bank, and the Hamas Islamists, who hold power in Gaza, have for years expressed interest in taking Palestinians back to the polls.A long-standing rivalry between the two main Palestinian factions was seen as a leading…

This post was originally published on South China Morning Post.