Israeli Democracy. There are many forms of democracy to be found around the world. Each democratic system reflects the history and aspirations of that nation, and the Israeli democratic system is an excellent example of this.
The Israeli model is built around the Knesset (Israeli Parliament).
The Knesset is a 120 seat house that is elected every four years,
unless circumstances call for early elections, by all Israeli citizens,
Jewish and non-Jewish. The Knesset is named for the 120 seat Great Assembly
instituted by the leaders of the Jewish people, Ezra and Nechemia after
the Babylonian exile (approximately 515 BCE). Although the Great Assembly
of Ezra and Nechemia was in no way democratic as we would know it today,
we can see that the modern democratic institutions of the Jewish state
sees its roots in an ancient tradition.
The Right to Vote. Every Israeli citizen from the age of 18
has the right to vote. There are almost four million eligible voters
in Israel and over 5000 polling stations. Election day is always a public
holiday.
Winning an Election.You might expect that the party that wins
most seats in the Knesset in an election would be considered the "winner"
and go on to form the government of the country. This would be the case
if a single party could win a simple majority of Knesset seats (ie.
61 seats). This would allow that party to have the power to pass any
legislation and govern as they wished. However, there are many political
parties, and since no single party has ever reached this number of seats,
various parties must form a coalition, combining to reach the majority
of 61 that will allow them to pass legislation and make policy for the
country. In the last Knesset election, for example, held in May 2003,
there were 33 parties -many of them one-issue parties- with only the
10 larger ones garnering enough votes to become Knesset parties. The
largest party, the Likud, won 38 seats, and so it needed a number of
other parties to agree to form a coalition, in order to be able to govern.
The leader of the largest party (then Ariel Sharon), having formed a
coalition of 61+ members of Knesset, became Prime Minister.
Problems with the System. A major ramification of the system
is that often a smaller party can have disproportional power to make
demands of the larger parties who need them in order to form, and keep,
a coalition. In addition, when the coalition is governing, it is too
easy for the smaller parties to force their demands through, with the
ever-present threat of their leaving the coalition (and thus causing
the government to fall, and new elections). In some senses the "winner"
of an Israeli election can, therefore, be a small party. In order to
combat this, in 1996 a new feature was attempted - the direct election
of the Prime Minister. Similar to the United States, where voters vote
directly for the President and not for the party that he represents;
in Israel this meant that each voter, in addition to voting for his
or her party, also cast a second ballot for one of the candidates for
Prime Minister. However, in the ensuing Knesset, the smaller parties
gained immensely in power, at the expense of the larger parties, such
as Labor and Likud, because people voted for parties of their own ethnic
or religious affiliation (such as Shas or Yisrael Ba'Aliya) as well
as a Prime Ministerial candidate. Following the election of Ariel Sharon
by this method in 2001, the Knesset voted to return to the previous
system.
Upcoming Elections. On March 28 2006, Israel will go to the
polls to elect its 17th Knesset and new government. The upcoming elections
will see, for the first time, a break in the decades-old Likud-Labor,
right-left, 2 large party system. Ariel Sharon, before his untimely
stroke, formed a centrist party - Kadima, and following the successful
disengagement from Gaza and Northern Samaria, Kadima is positioning
itself in the center, as an alternative to either Likud (right) and
Labor (left). Although at the time of writing, Kadima seems to be attracting
the most votes, we will only know how the political landscape will look
over the next four years come March 29th.