Electoral reform
On Weds night I went to a meeting in Ra'anana to hear Gidon Sa'ar, one of the up and coming men in the Likud Party, talk about Electoral Reform.
The meeting was held in a large American-style house. The living room was crowded so that there was only standing room at the back. Gidon S'aar is an impressive youngish man (early 40's), a lawyer by profession, who has held some responsible positions, including Cabinet Secretary. He spoke well and thoughtfully. He also answered questions with careful analysis.
He started out by saying "Israel is a difficult country to govern..." and no one disputed this. Also, everyone agrees that electoral reform is needed, but precisely how this should be brought about is unclear. While the Anglos in the audience have definite ideas about representative government, because they grew up in the US or Britain, most Israelis are not so sure, even though they are dissatisfied with the current system.
The attempt by Israel to introduce direct election of the Prime Minister separate from the Knesset elections (the so-called Presidential system) did not work. It caused fragmentation of the parties and after two elections all agreed that it didn't work and it was rescinded.
Sa'ar himself has authored three bills in the Knesset on the electoral system. He changed the threshold for parties to be elected from 1.5 to 2%. This helps to prevent too many small parties. He also authored a bill to have a maximum of 8 Ministers (each one of course requires a Ministry and an entourage and costs millions).
His third bill relates to representation in the electoral system. Since Israel currently has proportinal representation, all the power is in the hands of the parties and so it is a conflict of interest for them to actually change the system. No one will go for a complete changeover, but a partial changeover may be acceptable. He had proposed 30 (one quarter of the Knesset seats) be based on localities, but then he decided that half is preferable. So his bill now proposes that half of the Knesset be elected on the basis of local representation. Whether or not his bill has any chance of passing is not known, but Netanyahu has promised to support this electoral reform if he is elected PM at the next election.
Sa'ar is against the Norwegian system, in which Ministers when appointed resign their seats in Parliament in order to allow others to serve while they work as Ministers. Sa'ar thinks that Ministers need to be in the rough and tumble of politics and know what is going on. They also need to look after the interests of their Ministries and their constituencies in the Knesset.
He does not think Ministers should only be experts in their particular profession, because it is up to the PM to choose good Ministers, and if a PM appoints someone like Amir Peretz with no experience to head the Defense Ministry, that reflects on the PM more than on the Minister.
One of the problems with the current system is that the small parties demand large prices to join a coalition. This has to be reversed and the main party needs to demand more of the small parties. Whether or not the changes proposed in the electoral system away from pure proportional representation will achieve this is not really known.
The meeting was held in a large American-style house. The living room was crowded so that there was only standing room at the back. Gidon S'aar is an impressive youngish man (early 40's), a lawyer by profession, who has held some responsible positions, including Cabinet Secretary. He spoke well and thoughtfully. He also answered questions with careful analysis.
He started out by saying "Israel is a difficult country to govern..." and no one disputed this. Also, everyone agrees that electoral reform is needed, but precisely how this should be brought about is unclear. While the Anglos in the audience have definite ideas about representative government, because they grew up in the US or Britain, most Israelis are not so sure, even though they are dissatisfied with the current system.
The attempt by Israel to introduce direct election of the Prime Minister separate from the Knesset elections (the so-called Presidential system) did not work. It caused fragmentation of the parties and after two elections all agreed that it didn't work and it was rescinded.
Sa'ar himself has authored three bills in the Knesset on the electoral system. He changed the threshold for parties to be elected from 1.5 to 2%. This helps to prevent too many small parties. He also authored a bill to have a maximum of 8 Ministers (each one of course requires a Ministry and an entourage and costs millions).
His third bill relates to representation in the electoral system. Since Israel currently has proportinal representation, all the power is in the hands of the parties and so it is a conflict of interest for them to actually change the system. No one will go for a complete changeover, but a partial changeover may be acceptable. He had proposed 30 (one quarter of the Knesset seats) be based on localities, but then he decided that half is preferable. So his bill now proposes that half of the Knesset be elected on the basis of local representation. Whether or not his bill has any chance of passing is not known, but Netanyahu has promised to support this electoral reform if he is elected PM at the next election.
Sa'ar is against the Norwegian system, in which Ministers when appointed resign their seats in Parliament in order to allow others to serve while they work as Ministers. Sa'ar thinks that Ministers need to be in the rough and tumble of politics and know what is going on. They also need to look after the interests of their Ministries and their constituencies in the Knesset.
He does not think Ministers should only be experts in their particular profession, because it is up to the PM to choose good Ministers, and if a PM appoints someone like Amir Peretz with no experience to head the Defense Ministry, that reflects on the PM more than on the Minister.
One of the problems with the current system is that the small parties demand large prices to join a coalition. This has to be reversed and the main party needs to demand more of the small parties. Whether or not the changes proposed in the electoral system away from pure proportional representation will achieve this is not really known.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:13 PM
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