Direct Popular Election of the Prime Minister
Reuven Y. Hazen
Electoral Reform Campaign in Israel
Electoral reform has always been an
issue in Israel. Not a decade has passed without some debate on electoral reform,
encompassing practically every possible form of change, without much success.
The source of recently adopted reforms can
be traced back to 1986 when a group of academicians took up the cause for reform and
presented an "unsolicited" constitution. Their proposal included an electoral
reform which synthesized both parliamentary and presidential systems of government -- the
Prime Minister would no longer be chosen by the parliament following post-election
coalition bargaining, but would be directly elected by the population in a separate
ballot.
This same group formed the "Public
Committee for a Constitution for Israel," a grassroots movement to champion the cause
of electoral and political reform. Spurred on by events in the political arena which
magnified the malaise of the current system, the movement became extremely popular and
focused the growing public demand for reform vis-a-vis the political establishment.
The 1988 election led to the formation of
the second national unity government. Subsequently, four Members of the Knesset (MKs) from
across the political spectrum -- including the two major parties in the grand coalition --
submitted separate private members bills proposing governmental reform. All bills included
direct election of the Prime Minister.
Recognizing the gravity of the situation,
the two major parties established a bi-partisan committee to look into electoral and
governmental reform. The national unity government, however, fell prematurely, leaving the
ongoing committee discussions in hiatus. In midst of this confusion, the four MKs decided
to move ahead with their private bills, and all four passed their first reading in May of
1990.
The bills were then submitted to the
Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which along with four MKs decided to
formulate a single joint version to push forward in the legislative process. The common
reform plan was presented to the parliament in October of 1991 for a second and a third
reading.
Proposals For Voting System Change
An earlier suggestion for electoral
reform had previously begun to make its way through the Knesset. This proposal
incorporated two different versions:
1) the creation of 20 multi-member
constituencies of 4 members each, leaving the remaining 40 in a national pool;
2) the creation of 60 single-member
constituencies, leaving the remaining 60 in a national pool while raising the threshold to
2.5%.
This proposal for introducing
constituency-based elections, in both of its variations, was not as successful in passing
the legislative hurdles as the one suggesting a new method of electing the chief
executive. When it became apparent it was not politically possible to adopt
constituency-based electoral methods that would distort pure proportionality in order to
attain effective government, the chances for this reform diminished.
Basing their decision on the successful
adoption of the 1977 municipal electoral reform, which introduced direct elections for
local authorities, advocates of the constituency reform package switched their backing to
the reform which proposed the direct popular election of the Prime Minister.
It was their desire to bring about some
form of change which started the process of breaking the current system of its inability
to reform, while subsequently allowing or even necessitating additional reforms. The
adoption of direct elections was perceived as the linchpin that would soon allow the
reformers to completely transform the current system, which was still largely anchored on
pure proportionality.
After heated debates and much political
maneuvering -- including the contentious foray of Israel's President, a largely ceremonial
post, into the political arena to prod the process forward -- a diluted form of the first
proposal was finally adopted.
In March 1992, the Knesset enacted the new
"Basic Law: The Government," which provides Israel with the distinction of being
the only country to have direct popular election of its Prime Minister. By directly
electing its chief executive, along with other associated political reforms, Israel will
replace its pure parliamentary system with a new regime type that will be unique in the
world of democratic nations.
Direct Election of the Prime Minister
Articles 3 and 13 of the new
"Basic Law: The Government" lay down the new electoral system for Israel. The
Knesset and the Prime Minister will be elected separately with concurrent, four-year
terms. The Israeli voter will thus be asked to vote twice on the same ballot -- once for a
party list and once for an individual.
The Knesset will continue to be chosen by
a strict list system of proportional representation with the entire state serving as one
constituency. However, the Prime Minister will be selected according to the two-ballot
system. An absolute majority of the vote is necessary to elect the Prime Minister in the
first round; if that is not obtained, then two weeks later a second round will be held in
which only the two candidates with the highest votes in the previous round can
participate.
The new political system is described in
several of the articles in the same law. While the Prime Minister is given the power to
nominate the Cabinet, a parliamentary vote of investiture is necessary before the Cabinet
can begin to function. Moreover, the Knesset not only approves the Cabinet, it can also
oust the Prime Minister through a vote of no-confidence, which requires only a majority of
its 120 members. The removal of the Prime Minister brings about the dissolution of the
Knesset as well, meaning that new elections will be necessary for both. By the same token,
the Prime Minister -- with the support of Israel's symbolic President -- has the power to
dissolve the Knesset, but such a step would also end the Prime Minister's own tenure and
force new elections.
The law that eventually passed is quite
different from the earlier versions that were debated. Two important elements that served
to dilute the reform proposal are the vote of investiture and the ability to remove the
Prime Minister. In the original draft, there was no mention of parliamentary approval of
the cabinet, while the removal of the Prime Minister required an extraordinary majority of
70 members.
Under these conditions, a Knesset elected
with a majority that opposed the Prime Minister would not have had the ability to block
the cabinet from
taking office. Furthermore, considering Israel's political history, the need for an
overwhelming majority to remove the Prime Minister would have effectively thwarted most
hostile constellations from taking this step. These two amendments to the original
proposal are currently being re-examined.
According to the new law, if the Prime
Minister faces a hostile majority in the Knesset, each branch will possess a double-edged
sword -- the power to oust the other without much difficulty but simultaneously incurring
its own downfall. Israeli scholars have described the possible development of such an
adversarial situation as a "balance of terror" between the legislative and
executive branches.
Israel's Unique Path
Traditionally, there has been virtual
consensus in the academic literature that parliamentary systems are preferable overall to
presidential systems. As the focus of executive power in Israel becomes concentrated
around and identified with a single individual, Israel will embark on a path leading it
away from parliamentarism and toward a more presidential form of government.
In this respect, along with the method by
which its next Prime Minister is to be chosen, Israel is behaving in a unique manner,
contrary to the prevalent empirical pattern exhibited by other democratic nations. Israel
will straddle the two continua which are used to distinguish different types of electoral
and political systems: it will have both majoritarian and proportional elections, and it
will encompass aspects of both presidential and parliamentary regimes.
While the new Israeli electoral and
political system is unique, it is also still in the development phase. That is, the
institutional modification of Israeli politics is a process which has only just begun. As
Israel enters this trial period, it could well become a laboratory for electoral
experimentation. Several other countries have also begun to contemplate the direct popular
election of their Prime Minister -- Italy, Japan, and Germany, for example -- and will be
watching the Israeli experiment very closely.
Reuven Hazen is a Post-doctoral Fellow in
the Department of Political Science, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. This
article first appeared in a longer form in Representation, the quarterly journal of
the Arthur McDougall Fund.