Be back soon: Ehud Olmert at the ballot box
Photo: AP
Year-and-a-half to elections
Israeli governments last less than two years on average. Israel suffers because of it
Without question, the results of last week's elections were an expression of the public's will, and is an accurate portrayal of Israeli society today.
More elections soon?
Dana Levy
Public policy expert: Kadima government doomed by high number of coalition partners
The main problem is not the number of Knesset seats won by this-or-another party. Rather, the main problem is the electoral system.
Add to this the complete lack of public faith in elected officials and Knesset members – and it is a truly problematic mix, one that explodes in our faces again and again and again and again.
58 years, 32 governments
In the 58 years since independence Israel has had 32 governments – less than two years per government on average, and that's not even taking into account government ministers who fail to complete their terms of office.
We've had 10 finance ministers in the past 10 years, five transportation ministers in the last five years, and the list goes on.
These numbers indicate the collapse of Israel's electoral system, a bureaucracy with a country, with elected officials who cannot carry out policy or force underlings to carry it out. This is how government offices have operated in recent years.
Good news, bad news
The good news for Kadima and its leader is that they won this election. The bad news is that this statistical trend is likely to continue, and that this government, too, will fail to complete its term.
It wasn't because of Kadima that people said that the number of seats for each party would determine the coalition's stability. Stability is the name of the game, and without it it is impossible to manage the country.
The prime minister manages the parliamentary coalition, which is made up of a large number of parties who must choose between two options: to survive (that is to say, to do nothing) or to try to carry out policy – and to fall. There are no other options in the current make up.
Every Israeli prime minister spends a third or more of his time just surviving, and managing his coalition. There is no way to function while doing this. It is no way to administer a country.
Waiting to crash
Kadima received 28 mandates, far below its expectations to be able to establish a broad coalition and government. The practical meaning of this will only be felt when Prime Minister-elect Ehud Olmert tries to push through any program of substance, be in the social, economic or diplomatic realm.
Or, when the "sure center" bolts, his coalition will immediately begin to waver. This happened to previous prime ministers, experienced and strong as they may have been, and they were forced to call early elections about the political moves they made.
The stability of our body politic, separation of powers and relationships between them, the subject of regional elections, and the parliamentary system, as compared to the presidential system, are currently under discussion by the President's Council for Electoral Reform in Israel.
This public council plans to present its findings sometime this summer. The public, the media and the political establishment would do well to show some interest and understanding of this issue, which brings the Israeli political establishment, again and again, to a political vacuum that hurts us all.
Adi Sternberg is a member of the Citizens Empowerment Center in Israel
