The
recent elections in Israel have exposed several of those eight
hundred pound gorillas that have been hanging about in the room. But
most of them, such as the potential power of the Arab vote, had been
known, and conveniently ignored, for years. What amazes me, is
the other eight hundred pounder, the one that people invented, which
led to the birth of the United Arab Party.
From
nearly every corner of Israeli society, there has been a constant
call for government stability, which is political parlance for a
limited number of large parties, as opposed to a collection of
smaller parties which “hold the government hostage,” over their
particular issues.
In
fact, it was to fulfill this desperate need for eliminating smaller
parties that the last government raised the threshold allowing a
party to enter into the Israeli Knesset (parliament). And so, they
were successful. In the last election, instead of three or four
small Arab parties, Israel now has a large united Arab list, which
represents more mandates than they did previously. In terms of
government stability, this changed nothing. The Arab list had no
intention of being part of a Likud led or a Labor led government, and
therefore their unity has little effect on the executive branch of the
government. Their unity may potentially help their constituency, as
they will now be eligible for more seats on important parliamentary
committees, but as far as forestalling early elections, it will have
little effect.
In contrast, because of the raised threshold several smaller parties,
principally YaHad, will not be represented, and this will surely
affect the stability of the government, to its detriment. Further,
the stability of Israeli society, it would seem, would benefit from
the greatest plurality of representation, what we would call in any
non- political venue, consensus.
But,
before we talk about the stability of society, and what's best for
the average citizen, I will demonstrate how small parties have the
ability to make the government far more stable, though each of its
constituents might have less power. This is, of course, is the eight
hundred pound gorilla that no one wants to discuss. When the
politicians talk about “stability,” what they really mean is more
concentrated power. Stability has become a euphemism for control and
rule, for the ability to push through what would otherwise be,
unpopular agendas. In fact, especially in the early years of the
state, the “instability” was the result of the prime minister not
being able to bully his partners into complying with his will. In
the early years of the state (when the threshold was at its lowest),
only the fourth Knesset was forced into early elections. The
dissolution of the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth ,
seventh,eighth and tenth governments all fell due to the Prime
Minister being unable to force his agenda on the other members (and,
the eleventh government fell because of Ben-Gurion as well, who was
not the Prime Minister at the time). Fortunately, for the most part
during these “unstable” governments, the citizens were saved from
early elections. In fact, many of the newly formed governments
consisted of the same coalition partners as before the government
“fell,” making a mockery of the concept of instability.
In
fact, the instability of Israeli governments has much more to do with
the various mechanization of the politicians in the larger parties to
gain and hold onto their power than it has to do with small parties'
demands. There is absolutely no correctional between the raising of
the threshold and the stability of the government in power. In fact,
it might be the opposite.
The
truth is that a plurality of small interest parties requires everyone
to limit their appetite, restrain action which might alienate
participants and try and arrive at a common consensus of policy -
policy that, while not what everyone one wanted, would be what
everyone could agree upon.
To
demonstrate: Likud received thirty mandates, which is less than the number necessary it needs to form a government alone. It is currently
courting five parties, Kahlon, Jewish Home, Shas, United Torah
Judaism and Yisrael Beytenu, which bring another thirty seven
mandates collectively. Yet, each and every one these parties can
hold the rest of the parties, particularly Likud, “hostage.”
Without their mandates, the government can not be formed. And if it
is formed, then each of them can threaten to bring down the
government by leaving. This is no more stable than the last
government.
However,
if the threshold hadn't been raised, then YaHad would also be a
natural candidate for the government, and with its three mandates, no
one party (other than Likud) could threaten the government by
leaving. And if the threshold was even lower to allow for Yaleh
Yaroq (The Green Leaf) party to have entered into Knesset, it is
possible that their one issue could have been accepted to add even
more stability.
In
fact, if one looks at the previous governments of Israel, that is
exactly how the more stable ones remained in power. They catered to
a wide consensus of the electorate's will.
And
of course the most stable government would be one in which the
executive branch's role was not a vehicle of power and privilege, but
fulfilled its limited but vital role to execute the will of the
people, either expressed directly (though various methods such as a
referendum) or via a legislature. In such a scenario, the largest
consensus of society could be represented on each issue, as each
representative or deputy of the people would vote based on the issue
and not based on their position in a power base called a political
party.
Which
leads us to the idea of a stable society. In truth, the instability
of the government is really only a reflection of the greater
fragmentation of Israeli society. Israel society has become more
complex, and its issues have become more varied and nuanced. The
focus of the society is less on the country's survival, the question
of its existence, and much more on the quality and character of the society. Stifling that nuanced and important discussion, by
limiting opinions through raising the threshold will not make the
society more stable, more homogeneous. Quite the opposite, those
sectors who feel that they are not represented, who feel they have no
voice, may resort to other methods of expressing their will.
And
again, the recent elections are a prime example. A large number of
people who voted for the ill fated YaHad, come from the same sections
of society accused of “nationalistically motivated crime,”
actions, which come about through feelings that their will is
frustrated; that their voices are stifled. Silencing more voices,
frustrating more people's political will, will not bring about
stability. Rather, it has the potential to create an explosion.
If
democracy means that everyone has a voice, then the ideal would be a
mechanism that allows for the greatest plurality of representation,
as in a referendum system. The opposite would limit representation
and choice to as narrow a field as possible, as we have seen in
extremes, with the one party systems of the former Soviet Union and
Nazi Germany. It is true that a one part system will be a more
stable, efficient government. But then again, all forms of
dictatorship, including an oligarchy, are. Yet, it is also true,
especially in the extreme, that the less pluralistic the system of
representation, the further away a government is from realizing the
collective will of its citizens. A pluralistic system might be less
efficient, but it will certainly arrive much closer to an approximate
consensus of the people.
