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Ha'aretz
January 29,
2003
Summary: Israel has changed
from a twin ballot system to a single ballot system. In the twin
ballot system, voters placed one vote for the Prime Minister, and a
separate vote for a party list. The single ballot system discards
the direct vote for the Prime Minister, but maintains the party list
vote, which is the full representation (proportional representation)
component of the election.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtElection.jhtml?itemNo=257175&contrassID=28&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=2
Ha���aretz
Was return
to single ballot a mistake?
By Uzi Benziman
January 29, 2003. Yesterday's vote shows, among other things, that
the return to the single ballot system has not met expectations:
Contrary to the predictions of the instigators of the current
electoral system, the 16th Knesset has failed to create two large
parties, equal in power; it has not significantly cut the number of
factions and it has not strengthened the ruling ability of the
elected government. Yesterday's vote shows us that merely changing
the electoral system - a purely technical move - is not enough to
cure Israeli democracy of its ills. The political difficulties
reflected in the frequent change of government and the absence of a
political center of gravity capable of leading the people to a
definitive decision stem from the depth of the Israeli experience,
and in order to overcome them, there is a need for an internal
healing process that will consolidate the rifts and unite the people
around a common denominator. A perfect electoral system does not
exist and every democratic state deliberates on that issue, once in
a while adapting its electoral procedures to the reality emerging
within its society and the difficulties that its existing electoral
system arouses. In praise of the Israeli electoral system one can
say that it has developed an animated and ardent democracy. The
proportional representation system that Israel has employed since
the foundation of the state remained in place even after the
inception of direct prime ministerial elections in 1996. Although
there have been occasional calls to change the proportional
representation system to a majority electoral system, in which the
winner takes all, they never took off: Not everything that suits a
well-established, genteel democracy, such as Great Britain, or a
nation that sanctifies patriotism, such as the United States, is
applicable in Israel. In this young and emerging nation, supreme
value has been given to maximum representation of all sectors of
society - at the expense of stability. The State of Israel wakes
today to a political and parliamentary imbroglio no less grave than
previous ones, perhaps more so. The Likud may have become the
largest party, but it still lacks sufficient parliamentary power to
exercise its will. Labor has shrunk to a medium-sized party that is
not able to threaten the Likud regime and is equal more or less in
strength to Shinui. Labor and Likud's satellite parties remain equal
in their parliamentary weight to the previous Knesset. Shinui has
greatly increasede its strength on the previous Knesset, but isn't
strong enough to act as a counterweight to Likud. All this doesn't
mean that the return to a single ballot was necessarily a mistake;
changes of that nature require time until they are fulfilled. One
can also see Shinui and Labor as being politically close; joining
them together would create a parliamentary bloc equal in strength to
Likud and thus the old/new election system could be said to justify
itself. The attempt to improve the tools used by Israeli democracy
to elect its representatives will continue, but are no substitute
for the deep changes needed to bring it to agreement on its supreme
national interests. The dispute over the future of the territories
is the principle divide splitting Israeli society, and without the
scales tipping on this issue on the basis of an internal
reconciliation, the political system is doomed to instability. The
problem is that in order to achieve a definitive outcome there is a
need for a national leadership with a strong public standing. The
chances of such a leadership emerging from the ballot box is
conditioned, in no small measure, on the electoral system. This
Catch 22 was illustrated last night in a frustrating and depressing manner. |
