Hung Knesset

16 February 2009



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Election Results in Israeli Political Mess

To say that last week's Israeli elections were inconclusive is rather like describing the Pacific Ocean as damp. Both Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima party and Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud have claimed victory. The Arab share of the vote dropped. Avigdor Lieberman, who leads the extreme right Yisrael Beiteinu party, is likely to play kingmaker in the formation of the government. At its core, the Israeli political system is broken.

Customarily, the president of the nation asks the leader of the largest party to form a government. Sima Kadmon, who writes for Yediot Aharonat, suggested that any Kadima-led coalition would be doomed. As translated by the BBC, she wrote, “If she admits [Avigdor] Lieberman, then Labour and [left-wing party] Meretz will not join. If she takes Labour and Meretz she will have an impracticable coalition.” Yossi Verter of Ha'aretz echoed this view, “Without [Avigdor] Lieberman, Livni has no government... Only Israel's version of democracy could come up with the largest political bloc being comprised of Likud and right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties at the same time that the largest political party is the one leading the centre-left camp.

If that view is correct, President Shimon Peres may offer the premiership to Mr. Netanyahu. While it would violate custom, he may well decide that only Mr. Netanyahu can put together something approximating a working majority in the Knesset. Mr. Netanyahu could line up Mr. Lieberman and the ultra-religious right without too much trouble, at least, relative to Ms. Livni's situation.

The decline in the number of Arab-Israelis who cast a ballot is another worrisome development. Nahum Barnea wrote in Friday's Yediot Aharonat, “Only 54% of the Arab sector voted yesterday . . . . The decline in the rate of participation in voting indicates the dwindling affinity of Israel's Arabs to the state, and this trend is dangerous. In the political fuss to come in the next few weeks this problem will be forgotten . . . but it will not disappear.” This dwindling affinity to the state may lead to social problems that will take years to undo. Indeed, a Netanyahu government will likely just deepen this feeling of despair.

At fault in all of this is the extreme nature of Israel's proportional representation. Unlike the US or British first-past-the-post approach, or the German system under which a 5% of the vote threshold is needed for election, the Israeli Knesset's 120 members are chosen on exact as can be proportionality. This means there is no reason for a splinter party to align itself with a bigger group until well after the votes are counted. And until this is changed, Israeli governments are likely to be fragile coalitions – not the best arrangement for peace negotiations.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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