Over half of current government's decisions were not implemented
42% percent of the decisions on this government's agenda were implemented, says report, showing clear correlation between length of term in office and its ability to carry out promises.
The outgoing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered on only 42 percent of the decisions outlined in its agenda, according to a report by the Citizens' Empowerment Center in Israel released ahead of the 2015 elections.
The report compared this to the two previous governments. The 31st, under Ehud Olmert's leadership, carried out 67 percent of the decisions on its agenda, while a notable number of decisions made by Netanyahu's 32nd government were implemented during his 33rd government.
The figures were included in a report by the Citizens' Empowerment Center, an organization formed with a mission to improve the governance and performance ability of Israel's governments and parliaments. The report surveyed the declarations at the heart of the government's agenda and the coalition agreements signed before the establishment of the new government, and how much these declarations were realized.
According to the report, Netanyahu's current government failed to execute 15 core decisions, chief among them the implementation of the national housing plan and the appointment of Moshe Kahlon as chairman of the Israel Land Authority.
An additional core decision was the establishment of the so-called nationality bill, which did not become law and was one of the main factors in the coalition's collapse. The promise to reduce the number of water corporations was also not implemented, the regulation of the gas and energy marked has stalled, and bureaucratic proceedings have dragged on.
However, the government succeeded in implementing some decisions, including the Governance Act, the National Housing Committees Law to speed up construction procedures, and the passing of the decision to provide services for Holocaust survivors.
The central findings in the report indicated that the last three Israeli governments have struggled to implement their promises to the voting pubic. The majority of implemented decisions came during the 31st government led by Olmert.
The figures showed a clear correlation between the length of the government's tenure and its ability to implement promises and decisions. The findings also showed that the early march to the polls in Netanyahu's outgoing government severely damaged the ability to implement decisions. This government was in office for a mere 624 days, and its achievements were in accordance – only 11 core decisions. This government also stood in last place in relative terms, with only 42 percent of decisions implemented.
In comparison, the previous Netanyahu government was in office for 1,448 days. This government was able to implement 45 decisions, which is 64 percent of the decisions that were at the heart of coalition agreements when it was formed.
The Olmert government, on the other hand, was in office for 1,123 days, and made 36 decisions, which constituted 67 percent of its agenda.
The Olmert government announced upon its formation that, among other things, it would work to raise the election threshold to 2.5 percent, that it would examine alternatives to changing the system of governance and changing the elections system, and that the coalition factions would work to complete legislating Israel's basic laws, or otherwise work to formulate a constitution. None of the aforementioned promises were kept, but some of these decisions were actually dealt with by the 32nd and 33rd Netanyahu-led governments.
The previous Netanyahu government failed in executing 25 of the decisions it made upon its formation, almost 40 percent of its agenda, including decisions that directly deal with strengthening governance: Changing the Basic Law: The State Economy and increasing the amount of MKs required to pass a private budgetary bill proposal.
Director of the Citizens' Empowerment Center in Israel, Tomer Lotan, said: "The findings reflect mostly the previous governments' inability to execute decisions, which turns into a real failure when considering the fact these were short-term governments that had a hard time surviving for long. We decided to focus on the bottom line - processes that started and got stuck were noted as decisions that hadn't been executed. You can see that the percent of execution on decisions is low even when talking about core issues - those the government put at the heart of its promises."
According to Lotan, "Control and supervision of the implementation of decisions get relatively little attention. Just like we examine the performance of a car before we purchase it, we need to examine the performance of our public representatives before we vote for them. We don't need to just talk about whether they made good decisions - but whether they were actually able to realize them."
