The Crumbling Knesset
by Yonatan Lupu
Italian governments have long been the butt of jokes — largely because they are notoriously short-lived. Current Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's turn as the Italian FDR (he's been in office since 2001) is a historical exception. Since the formation of the Italian Republic in 1946 the country has gone through more than 50 governments — roughly one a year — thanks to the combination of a parliamentary system and a politically divided population.
But just down the Mediterranean, Italy is facing some heavy competition from Israel, which seems determined to take this crown. In the last seven years — since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin — there have been four different prime ministers, the same number as during the previous 20 years. And while this has a lot to do with instability in the region, its roots go much further, and bode ill for anyone hoping a strong leader will emerge anytime soon.
Needless to say, Israel's political instability comes at a bad time. The second Palestinian intifada has been raging for over two years with little sign of stopping. Largely as a result of the violence, Israel's economy, which thrived for much of the 1990s, is in recession. Factionalism in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, only compounds the problem — the government spends more time on internal bickering than solving problems, and no party has the support necessary to accomplish anything significant. In January's election, the top vote-getter, Likud, received less than one third of the national vote — if that is a mandate, it is a mandate for the status quo.
And with the makeup of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's newly formed governing coalition, it looks as if this trend may very well continue. During the most recent election, 14 parties won representation in the 120-member Knesset. Likud — Sharon's party — won 38 seats
and upped this total to 40 when it merged with another party. Following the election, Sharon faced some difficult choices in forming a coalition. Likud rival and election runner-up, the Labor party, with its 19 seats, adamantly rejected forming a coalition with Sharon. Sharon was then forced to turn to the centrist Shinui party, which won 15 seats; however, the combined 55 seats of Likud and Shinui was not enough for a majority, so the coalition added the National Union, a hard-right party, and the National Religious Party.
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Tension is all but certain within the coalition, especially between Shinui and the NRP. One of the key parts of Shinui's platform — and a main reason why it was able to garner 15 seats — was its rejection of the religious parties' involvement in previous governments. Many Shinui voters and Knesset members are staunchly secular, which will make it difficult for the coalition to find common ground on key issues like religious draft exemptions and subsidies for Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories. Indeed, one religious party left out of the coalition, Shas, has vowed to bring down the group. Rather than form a strong basis for future governing, the current coalition makes a no-confidence vote and more elections likely and ensures that this threat will underly upcoming government policies.
A main cause of the new instability is increasing factionalism among Israeli voters. Many new parties have sprung up in the last decade, all trying to out-hawk, out-dove or out-God each other. Israeli Arabs have their own parties, and until recently so did Russian immigrants. The voters' mentality is uncompromising — many will simply not vote for a large party that closely resembles their ideology, but instead vote for the one that fits them exactly — regardless of its political clout. There are three parties just for the religious right, formed because voters could not agree on exactly how religious they should be. If Americans thought this way, there would be a party just for each neighborhood in Manhattan. We may complain about the lack of choices on our ballots, but at least we have stable governments.
But a second, more addressable cause of the instability is structural: the electoral system itself. The parliamentary system used to work just fine. For decades after Israel's independence, it was governed by Labor and its predecessors. Even into the 1990s, Israel had a fairly consistent, two-party system, trading between Likud and Labor. Certainly, other parties were winning votes, but not enough. With other parties getting significant shares of the votes, though, the dynamic has changed — and with it, the underlying rationale for a parliamentary system.
One possible solution put forth by some academics to solve similar problems is the single-member district system. The country would be divided into small districts, and the top vote-getter from each would represent it. In theory, then, a party that won 5 percent of the national vote could end up completely shut out of the government. At the same time, the larger parties would end up winning more seats, making coalition-forming easier.
Unfortunately, from a practical perspective, single-member districts could not be instituted in Israel, as it would be next to impossible to get people to agree on how to define the districts. Do you include Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? If so, which ones? In the end, the minute anyone started drawing lines they would run into so much opposition and disagreement that the process would be instantly dead. Instituting single-member districts would require defining Israel's borders — and that is the million-dollar problem.
A less drastic measure would be a run-off between the top vote-getters in the popular election. For example, in the last election, the run-off would be between Likud, Labor, Shinui and Shas, if the top four parties were included. That would more likely result in a strong government coalition — or even a single ruling party — than the current system. Such a change would force many Israelis to vote for a party with which they do not perfectly agree. The Arab-Israeli parties would be shut out; Meretz voters would cringe at the possibility of having to go back to Labor — not dovish enough; Yahadut Hatora voters couldn't stomach voting for Shas — the Shas MK's probably only have half the Talmud memorized!
Israeli voters need to realize democracy requires a certain amount of compromise. It is impractical to insist on voting only for someone with whom you agree 100 percent; Israel can't have 6 million prime ministers. Often, it's necessary to balance the obvious desire to vote for a party whose ideology matches your own with the need to have a stable, consistent government, something especially important given the crises Israel faces today. Somehow, Italy has managed to get along for decades despite having many voters who are unwilling to make this compromise. But Italy doesn't have Israel's problems.
E-mail Yonatan Lupu at ylupu@comcast.net.
— graphic by D.P. Barsam (barsam@hotpop.com)
