OK, I promised a series of posts on politics, and I should hurry.
...because our national elections are due in less than 40 days.
OK. Since most of my friends here are not Israeli, I should start with a general overview of the political system in Israel. It should be more or less familiar to the Europeans among you, and a little less to the American ones.
Israel has three powers, like most modern democracies: a parliament called "the Knesset" (which is the legislative power), the government (including all the ministers and the prime minister) - the executive power, and the courts (judicial power).
Following the British example (I think), the government is strongly tied to the Knesset. Most of the ministers are also members of the Knesset.
The nominal head of state is the President (currently Mr. Shimon Peres), but all executive power lies with the prime minister assisted by the rest of the ministers.
The High Court of Justice serves as the judicial power that defends the constitution. The only problem is, of course, that we don't actually have a constitution. There are some so-called "Basic Laws", which serve as a constitution, because they can only be overturned by a 2/3 majority in the Knesset, and they take priority over any new, less privileged law being legislated.
The Knesset consists of 120 members. There are no separate houses - just the one. Elections take place every 4 years. Well, theoretically. In reality, only two Knessets, if my memory serves me right, completed their full term. Most have been prematurely dissolved for one reason or another. The dissolution of the Knesset means elections will take place - and this is what's happening at the moment.
Once elections are declared, the various parties each present a list of candidates. The established parties usually present a list of 120 candidates, although of course no single party has ever won all the seats in the Knesset, and hopefully, none ever will. The smaller or newer parties may present a shorter list, and there have been cases in which a party won more votes than it had candidates, and its extra votes were distributed among other parties.
Actually, there is a complicated rule that dictates how extra votes are distributed between parties to make a round number of seats in the parliament. I once wrote a computer program implementing that rule for one of my University courses... However, parties are also allowed to have "surplus agreements" between them so that extra votes from one go to the other.
Those lists of candidates are national. Meaning we don't elect on a regional basis - contrary to Britain or Germany or Switzerland.
Voting is strictly manual. The big parties have tried introducing electronic voting in their primaries, and have failed miserably, so at the moment, nobody is promoting an electronic voting system in Israel. Voting is very simple. Each party's list of candidates has a letter of the alphabet (The Hebrew alphabet, that is) or a combination of up to three letters that identifies it. For example, the labor party is identified by the letters אמת, while the Likkud is identified by מחל. New parties have to ask for a new symbol which will not be confused with any other party's symbol. Anyway, these letter combinations are printed on pieces of paper. Each voting station has a box containing all the ballot papers arranged face up in a matrix. The box is behind a screen. The voter goes behind that screen, selects the ballot paper for the candidate list he or she supports, puts it in the envelope given to him by the voting station personnel, and then comes out and drops the envelope into the ballot box.
Israel is full of smart-asses. So occasionally some voter may decide to grab all the ballot papers for a party he dislikes while he is behind the screen and nobody sees him. This would compromise voting confidentiality for the next guy who wanted to vote for that party, because he'd need to ask for the missing stack to be filled. To prevent this, there is also a stack full of blank papers, and anyone can write the letter combination on one of these papers by hand, and it's a legal vote.
Other common voting frauds are using somebody else's ID card to vote. This is very common in the Haredi sector, where all men dress in black and wear a beard, so it's easy to confuse non-Haredi poling station committee members. That sector is known for a high turnout of deceased voters. :-) Those are people who died after the official book of voters was closed. Their ID cards are then used on the day, because of course the deceased person would like his will to be done and his vote to count. ;-)
Anyway, once everybody has voted, the counting is done at the voting station, and after the votes are tallied, the entire content of the ballot box, as well as the tally, are taken to the centers where all the tallies are added together, and the ballots are kept in case of appeals. By morning, we know exactly who won seats in the Knesset, and how many.
Once that is done, the president summons the head of the party which won the most seats, and assigns him or her the task of forming a government. If he fails to do so, the second largest party's head is given the task. That's how Mr. Nethanyahu got to be the Prime Minister this time around. He was not the head of the largest party, but he was the one who succeeded in forming a coalition government. Forming a government requires getting 61 members of the Knesset to approve your government, which means a coalition of several parties. Usually they are convinced to join the coalition either by offering them portfolios in the government, or by offering money or the promotion of legislation favoring their party's platform.
Well, those are the technicalities. In the next installations I'll introduce the various parties and the intrigues on the way to the elections in January.
OK. Since most of my friends here are not Israeli, I should start with a general overview of the political system in Israel. It should be more or less familiar to the Europeans among you, and a little less to the American ones.
Israel has three powers, like most modern democracies: a parliament called "the Knesset" (which is the legislative power), the government (including all the ministers and the prime minister) - the executive power, and the courts (judicial power).
Following the British example (I think), the government is strongly tied to the Knesset. Most of the ministers are also members of the Knesset.
The nominal head of state is the President (currently Mr. Shimon Peres), but all executive power lies with the prime minister assisted by the rest of the ministers.
The High Court of Justice serves as the judicial power that defends the constitution. The only problem is, of course, that we don't actually have a constitution. There are some so-called "Basic Laws", which serve as a constitution, because they can only be overturned by a 2/3 majority in the Knesset, and they take priority over any new, less privileged law being legislated.
The Knesset consists of 120 members. There are no separate houses - just the one. Elections take place every 4 years. Well, theoretically. In reality, only two Knessets, if my memory serves me right, completed their full term. Most have been prematurely dissolved for one reason or another. The dissolution of the Knesset means elections will take place - and this is what's happening at the moment.
Once elections are declared, the various parties each present a list of candidates. The established parties usually present a list of 120 candidates, although of course no single party has ever won all the seats in the Knesset, and hopefully, none ever will. The smaller or newer parties may present a shorter list, and there have been cases in which a party won more votes than it had candidates, and its extra votes were distributed among other parties.
Actually, there is a complicated rule that dictates how extra votes are distributed between parties to make a round number of seats in the parliament. I once wrote a computer program implementing that rule for one of my University courses... However, parties are also allowed to have "surplus agreements" between them so that extra votes from one go to the other.
Those lists of candidates are national. Meaning we don't elect on a regional basis - contrary to Britain or Germany or Switzerland.
Voting is strictly manual. The big parties have tried introducing electronic voting in their primaries, and have failed miserably, so at the moment, nobody is promoting an electronic voting system in Israel. Voting is very simple. Each party's list of candidates has a letter of the alphabet (The Hebrew alphabet, that is) or a combination of up to three letters that identifies it. For example, the labor party is identified by the letters אמת, while the Likkud is identified by מחל. New parties have to ask for a new symbol which will not be confused with any other party's symbol. Anyway, these letter combinations are printed on pieces of paper. Each voting station has a box containing all the ballot papers arranged face up in a matrix. The box is behind a screen. The voter goes behind that screen, selects the ballot paper for the candidate list he or she supports, puts it in the envelope given to him by the voting station personnel, and then comes out and drops the envelope into the ballot box.
Israel is full of smart-asses. So occasionally some voter may decide to grab all the ballot papers for a party he dislikes while he is behind the screen and nobody sees him. This would compromise voting confidentiality for the next guy who wanted to vote for that party, because he'd need to ask for the missing stack to be filled. To prevent this, there is also a stack full of blank papers, and anyone can write the letter combination on one of these papers by hand, and it's a legal vote.
Other common voting frauds are using somebody else's ID card to vote. This is very common in the Haredi sector, where all men dress in black and wear a beard, so it's easy to confuse non-Haredi poling station committee members. That sector is known for a high turnout of deceased voters. :-) Those are people who died after the official book of voters was closed. Their ID cards are then used on the day, because of course the deceased person would like his will to be done and his vote to count. ;-)
Anyway, once everybody has voted, the counting is done at the voting station, and after the votes are tallied, the entire content of the ballot box, as well as the tally, are taken to the centers where all the tallies are added together, and the ballots are kept in case of appeals. By morning, we know exactly who won seats in the Knesset, and how many.
Once that is done, the president summons the head of the party which won the most seats, and assigns him or her the task of forming a government. If he fails to do so, the second largest party's head is given the task. That's how Mr. Nethanyahu got to be the Prime Minister this time around. He was not the head of the largest party, but he was the one who succeeded in forming a coalition government. Forming a government requires getting 61 members of the Knesset to approve your government, which means a coalition of several parties. Usually they are convinced to join the coalition either by offering them portfolios in the government, or by offering money or the promotion of legislation favoring their party's platform.
Well, those are the technicalities. In the next installations I'll introduce the various parties and the intrigues on the way to the elections in January.