Ho-hum, another election coming
up. Will the cycle never end? Will a stable government finally be
formed? And finally, does it matter?
After all, the economic, military and
international situations are all pretty good to excellent, and as an
Israeli friend once told me, when I complained about the lousy governmental
structure, "Don't worry--we don't pay the slightest attention to what the
government does!"
Well, maybe so, but then again, maybe
they should. Especially with the possibility of a government dependent
upon the support of extremists who threaten not the structure, but the essence
of democratic governance.
At least two changes in the structure of
the government are absolutely essential if the electoral circus is to come
to an end:
1. Term limits. At least the
position of prime minister must be limited to a maximum of two terms, not
necessarily consecutive. In a true democracy no-one is indispensable, or
if he or she is, it is not a democracy. Henry Kissinger once said
"Power is an aphrodisiac" (he should know). Even Winston
Churchill, one of the truly greats of modern history, didn't know when to quit
and was unceremoniously turned out of office by a nonentity after leading
Britain to victory in world War II (Churchill characterized Clement Attlee, the
Labour Party leader who succeeded him thus: "An empty taxi pulled up
at No 10 Downing Street and Clement Attlee stepped out.")
2. The members of the Knesset
currently represent no-one but their party leader. This must be changed
to a system whereby all or most of the members of the Knesset are elected in
constituencies, and thus represent and are responsible to real people. If
a Briton or an American has a serious problem, they know they can always go to
their Congressperson or member of Parliament for redress. Not here.
There are other changes in both the
executive and legislative branches of government that would be helpful, but
these two are essential. Can a true leader be found to push them
through? We shall see.
1 comment:
It is not a leader that will push for changes to the way Israelis elect the Knesset delegates. It hasn't happened in 75 years and the subject is not on any party agenda that I know about. MKs are not representatives but delegates of a political party, as is evident. There is almost no link between the Knesset delegates and the constituent public. Changing the system of electing MKs will happen only by a massive grass roots movement by us, the voters. The Israeli Knesset of 120 delegates means that, if elected directly by district, as in Britain, each MK would represent and be answerable to 75,000 residents in his/her district, which compares favorably with Britain, where an MP elected by district represents about 103,000 residents. When MKs don't articulate their views and if elected, do not represent their constituency, the MK can be voted out of office.
There must be many of us keen to promote a public campaign to change the election system for the Knesset and, of course, to limit the prime minister to two terms. How does we get started?
Post a Comment