Israeli politicians are thus accountable only to their parties and not directly to the electorate. The voter has a say only regarding how much strength each party will receive, not which person enters the Knesset.
The Likud was the largest of the parties to hold primaries on Thursday. All of the top 18 finishers were members of Knesset or cabinet ministers in the outgoing government, and most of them were among the opponents of this summer’s expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria.
Of the ranking cabinet ministers who ran in the primaries, only Health Minister Dani Naveh was ranked in the top ten. Central Committee members punished Education Minister Limor Livnat (ranked 11th and given the 10th slot which was reserved for a woman) and Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz (ranked 12th) for their conflict with party Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu over his call for them to resign from the government. These ministers, together with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who was guaranteed the number 2 slot after Netanyahu’s leadership victory, then spent the entire weekend complaining loudly about the machinations and maneuvers that they claim cost them higher rankings. The top two finishers were both first-term back-benchers with almost no political experience.
The militant secular Shinui party also held primaries on Thursday. Former Interior Minister, and party founder, Avraham Poraz, was surprised when he lost the race for the number two spot on the list behind party Chairman Tommy Lapid. In reaction, Poraz quit the party, and was followed by four other current party MKs.
The right-wing Moledet party, one of the founding constituents of the National Union, was another of the parties to hold primaries that day. MK Aryeh Eldad, probably the most vocal and demonstrative MK in opposition to the Gush Katif expulsion, was ranked highest in the party after party Chairman Benny Elon. He will be given the sixth slot on the unified National Union list. But while winning his party’s acclaim, Eldad threatened to turn his back on them and leave the party altogether if he is not given a higher slot on the unified list.
These childish reactions are more appropriate for the sandbox than for the electoral process of a supposedly democratic country.
The Likud is about to suffer a colossal meltdown at the hands of Israeli voters. From 40 seats in the outgoing Knesset, Ariel Sharon took 14 when he formed Kadima. But the Likud still looks to fall from 26 to about 15 if the polls prove correct. Those who should be leading the party and working to rehabilitate it in the eyes of the public, are instead engaged in constant squabbling and bickering with each other. As such, they deserved the poor results they were given by their party’s decision-makers.
Shinui is about to suffer an even greater electoral catastrophe. With 15 seats in the last Knesset, most polls predict they will win 3-5 seats now. Some predict they won’t even get the 3 seats necessary to get into the Knesset. So the party’s internal officers have decided that their current parliamentary leaders are not doing a good job and have chosen to replace them.
The National Union, a combination of 3 right-wing parties, has decided that it is best to strive for unity on the political right, and has thus allowed for representatives of each constituent party to obtain spots on their Knesset list. The Moledet Party was given the number 1, 6, 9, and 10 slots, and Aryeh Eldad won the highest slot available to him. But that is not good enough. The reality of Israeli electoral politics and the will of right wing voters are less important to him than obtaining a higher spot on the list.
In all three cases, the complainers will receive what they deserve. Ultimately, that is one of the major tests of democracy. If a politician is not properly doing the job he or she was elected to do, that politician should be replaced.
Israel’s electoral system is far from truly democratic. Elected representatives are not representatives of the voter, but rather of their party. This leads to childish bickering among politicians of the same party and to a complacency that often prevents politicians from carrying out their duties properly.
If the Israeli public is not able to replace MKs who don’t do their jobs properly, it is at least gratifying that the various party machineries are aware enough of the will of their electorate to do it for them. Either way, the will of the voter – whether the public voter or the internal party voter – must be respected. All the complaining voiced by the sore losers is simply confirmation that the voters in last week’s primaries were correct.
Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
