About A Widely Held Election Misconception In Israel

Israel is heading into general elections soon (Tuesday, 9 April) and the general insanity levels are rising. In the past, parties with intentions to get elected had to publish a platform, and were to some extent held accountable to it. It used to be that the party agenda rather than the person currently heading the party was the important factor in making the decision of who you'll vote for. But things are changing for the worse from one election to the next.

To me it feels like our elections are increasingly influenced by the American model. In the American (mostly) bi-partisan system it is a usually an "all or nothing" victory. There is a clear "winner" in every race, be it for the Senate, the House, or the presidency.

That is not the case in a multi-(multi)-party system like the one in Israel. There are currently a record number of 47 parties signed up for the upcoming elections. The previous record was in 2009 when there were 33 parties registered. The concept of "Winner" is meaningless when there is almost always going to be a coalition government rather than a single ruling party. Compromises are going to, inevitably, be made and that is even before you factor in the surplus-vote agreements that a lot of the parties have. It gets so complicated it makes the US electoral system seem simple.

In such a situation the important question is not so much "who has the most votes" and more "what coalition can they make". And yet, this idea of "Winning" the election or searching for a clear "Winner" is constantly talked about in media, both national (who should know better) and social.

Below is a photo @techslut shot at a coffee shop this morning. This not-quite-Starbucksy promotion is inviting people to take part in their "great election survey" by picking a coffee cup with the name one of the more realistic possible candidate or candidates to be the next prime minister.

This annoys me for several reasons.

Political Math

First, since like I explained I don't think it matters that much who is actually the prime minister. In Israeli politics, the president asks all the parties elected for the Knesset to tell him who their choice for prime minister is. He tallies the numbers and tasks the person with the most votes to create the next government. Should that person fail, the next candidate in line is tasked with creating a government. And it's even more convoluded than it sounds, especially when you consider just how versatile and often polarized Israeli society can be.

The Arab representatives have said numerous times they will never sit in the coalution of any Israeli government. Any. Ever. When asked who their candidate for a prime minister is they always say "no one" so they do not actually count. Once you take their mandates out of the count (12 members of parliament in the last election out of 120) we are left with 108 votes that are divided unequally by the parties. The minimum requirement was recently heightened to 3 mandates - so if your party didn't reach at least 3 mandates of the general vote you get nothing.

It takes 61 members to create a government (1 more then half of 120 = a majority) but hopefully the government you aim to create is larger and more stable than 61 members. The bigger and stronger the government the more laws you can pass. Of course, in order to create a bigger government, you need to make more compromises.

source: jewishpress

Cult of Personality

Here's the second reason the content of the coffee cups' photo annoys me and I mentioned it above; it feels like lately a lot of our political parties are just more of the same. There is less and less actual agenda or ideology separating them and more of the American style "personality cult" that looks good on TV. Notice that in that picture above it doesn't say which party your choosing - only who its leader is. Who your "Winner" is.

I feel that this concept of a "Winner" of the election is misleading and dangerous. Even if an unlikely party won an unusual number of votes, or even the most votes, ultimately what matters is the coalition numbers game.

By making the election all about the party leaders and less about ideology it makes each of them more inclined to think of themselves as possible prime ministers. It makes the public expect that the party with the largest number of votes would automatically be charged with creating the next government (which is not always the case). It makes it both harder to compromise, since you have to make sure you remain within your projected "public image", and easier - since no one really knows what you stand for.

It also makes our political arena very prone to corruption as our increasing number of indicted and convicted public figures including our current prime minister (to be indicted on corruption charges) will attest.

The Lesser of 47 Evils

It is quite depressing how few good options we have if any. Not voting is bad since you are not counted nor do you have any influence on the outcome. Any party you vote for probably has corrupt individuals, sex offenders or both and they will probably not be able to make any significant changes to the status quo anyway. Politics sure is fun.

The party I'll probably end up voting for is only an approximation of my ideology, even though their platform agenda is filled with contradictions. And theirs isn't the only one.

In our system of "majority rules", we seem to have forgotten that in a democracy it is the majority's job to protect the minorities and hear them rather than disregard them.

I really hope we'll live to see a better future in our region but I fear this election will not be its harbinger.