Sunday, October 30, 2022

End the Election Cycle

In this election season, many are bemoaning the unsatisfactory rules governing the way we elect members of the Knesset. One of my mailing readers posted the following point of view, with which I totally agree?

     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:

  1. 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?

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