Hamid Happyman How to Make Israeli Politics More Ethical and Democratic Prof. Paul Eidelberg I am often asked, “How can Israel improve its fragmented and dysfunctional political system?” It’s really quite simple, but vested interests, widespread ignorance, and half-educated political scientists make improvement extremely difficult. For the general public, it’s sufficient here to mention two ways of improving the system. I. The Electoral Threshold It’s fairly well known that Israel’s current 2% threshold, while very democratic, spawns a profusion of trivial and transient parties. Thirty-three parties registered for the 2009 and 2013 Knesset elections! A low threshold inevitably multiplies the number of job-seeking politicians. This cannot but lower the level of political life. It not only fragments the Knesset and precludes a solid opposition party, but it also results in a cabinet with five or more rival parties, which renders the government incapable of pursuing coherent and resolute national policies. A low threshold therefore undermines national solidarity and this diminishes Israel’s ability to deal effectively with both friends and enemies. Apart from the Netherlands, a homogeneous country, Israel’s electoral threshold is the lowest of the more than 80 democratic countries that I have examined. Sweden has a nationwide threshold of 4%, but if a party reaches 12% in one election district, it will be represented even if it does not reach the 4% level. Germany has a 5% threshold. In some countries, joint lists face higher threshold requirements than single-party lists. Raising the threshold in Israel from 2% to 5% would have the beneficial consequences. At first glance, and given Israel’s 120-member Knesset membership, 5% threshold translates into six Knesset seats. However, parties that might win eight or even nine seats may form joint lists or join larger parties rather than risk the possibility of being eliminated from the Knesset by falling below the 5% threshold in a “bad election” year. Hence a 5% threshold could produce a Knesset consisting of four parties: two secular parties, one “left,” the other “right”; one religious party; and one Arab party. We may then contemplate cabinet coalitions of only two parties. This will prompt the “left,” whose power now depends partly on the Arab vote, to shift toward the center of the political spectrum. A 5% threshold would therefore promote more coherent and resolute national policies. (By the way, David Ben-Gurion proposed a 10% electoral threshold—a most unrealistic proposal in a Knesset then consisting of more than 20 parties.) II. Constituency or Multidistrict Elections Anyone who has properly studied the parliamentary electoral systems of 80 countries which have democratic elections for their lower or only branch of the legislature will inevitably conclude not only that Israel’s is the least democratic, but also less Jewish in principle than her gentile counterparts—and for a very simply reason. The members of Israel’s legislature are not individually elected by and accountable to the voters in constituency elections! In Israel, the entire country constitutes a single electoral district. Citizens are compelled to vote not for an individual candidate but for a fixed, party-ranked list of candidates, most of whose names are unknown to the average voter. This has grave consequences: Assume that the leader of party A is Israel’s Prime Minister, and that the leaders of parties, B, C, D and E compose his Cabinet Ministers. Because a majority of the Knesset’s members (MKs) owe their position and perks to these parties and not to the votes of constituents, they cannot function as judges of their Government’s policies as do legislators in all democratic countries. If an MK were to vote against his Government he would be committing political suicide. This will prevent him from resisting policies he deems unwise or self-destructive. It’s quite possible that the 1993 Oslo Agreement might not have been consummated if Israel had constituency elections. And it’s virtually certain that the Sharon Government would not have been able to enact the October 2004 Gaza Evacuation Law of August 2005. That law, which resulted in the forced and unconscionable expulsion of Gaza’s 8,000 Jews, required the votes of 23 Likud MKs. Those MKs, who campaigned against withdrawal from Gaza in the February 2003 national election, betrayed their constituents by voting for the Evacuation law—which they would not have done had they been individually accountable to the voters in constituency elections. The SYSTEM brings out the worst in men. The SYSTEM of fixed party lists makes MKs subservient to party bosses. This SYSTEM discourages men of high caliber from entering politics. Indeed, Israeli parties are havens for job-seekers and apparatchiks. Only recall that in the 1999 elections, 14 out of 32 Likud candidates for the Knesset abandoned their party and “hopped” over to other parties in order to receive a safe place or ranking on their adopted party’s list! If Israel had multidistrict (or regional) elections, Knesset Members would be accountable to the voters, as they are in any truly representative democracy. As for the kind of electoral rules suitable to Israel, there are two extremes types. One maximizes the power of the party leaders, the other maximizes the power or freedom of choice of the voters. Israel and Israel alone represents the first extreme where the voter, as noted, must cast his ballot for a fixed, party-ranked list of candidates in a single countrywide electoral district. The other extreme, in Switzerland, employs multidistrict elections and the voter is given the option of voting either for a party list or for a designated number of candidates running in his district without regard for their party affiliation. In fact, the voter can mix his preferred candidates from one party with those from other parties. In this way, each voter has a say in the district’s whole legislative contingent! Between these two extremes are many electoral systems which more or less balance the power of the parties and the freedom of choice of the voters. Essential for any reasonable balance, however, is constituency elections. Some countries use “personalized” proportional representation. For example, in Germany the voter is given two votes, one for an individual candidate and one for a party list. The candidate vote is for a single-member district contest that is won by a plurality (as in the United States and in some 24 other countries). The second vote, however, is for a party list, and is used to provide compensatory seats to those parties which did not receive in the single-member districts the seat share proportional to their nationwide vote share. (Actually, much the same result can be achieved with a single vote, as in Denmark and Sweden.) Alternatively, many political scientists recommend the preferential voting system used in Australia and Ireland, where citizens rank the candidates on the party lists. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that Israel will not solve its internal and external problems until it reforms its parliamentary electoral system along lines suggested in this article. In the final analysis, however, Israel needs a Constitution based on Jewish principles and values. The present writer has drafted such a Constitution, and with a view to making it acceptable to religious as well as non-religious Jews, be they inclined toward the left or right end of the political spectrum.☼
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:07:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015