Israel’s Straitjacket

“There is nothing like this system in the entire democratic world,” said Israel’s President Chaim Herzog. His description of his country’s electoral process was not a boast but a lament. Since its founding, Israel has been burdened with a truly bizarre method for selecting its parliament. Called proportional representation, it encourages a proliferation of parties, makes coalitions virtually unavoidable, gives small factions the chance to make often exorbitant political demands, and encourages unseemly bargaining and frequent deadlock in forming new governments. Why is such a system tolerated? Because those who benefit most from it refuse to get rid of a good thing.

Israel’s national election on Nov. 1 saw 15 parties winning seats in the 120-member Knesset, continuing a pattern begun 40 years ago when 11 parties won representation in the first Knesset. Other democracies have a constituency system, wherein voters choose among individual candidates. Israelis vote for party lists, with Knesset seats awarded in proportion to the total votes that parties receive. Little more than 20,000 votes will win a seat. No party in Israel has ever won a majority.

Herzog made his remarks when he all but insisted that Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the Likud party, take another 21 days to try to put together a coalition. At the same time, Herzog, ignoring the tradition that the president is supposed to be above politics but also echoing majority national opinion, urged Likud to shun a narrow government with the small ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious parties and instead seek to continue a broad-based coaliton with the Labor party. Shamir seems to be willing to try. So is Shimon Peres, Labor party leader. But a majority of Labor’s Executive Bureau has refused to go along.

The thinking of many of these younger Laborites is that their party would benefit in the long run if Shamir and his right-wing allies were left on their own to make a mess of things. Maybe they’re right. That leaves Israel, though, facing the prospect of a regime whose likely policies on such things as the occupied territories and religion’s role in everyday life are not representative of majority opinion. Herzog used words like “frustration, helplessness and shame” to describe what has been happening since the election five weeks ago. Blame the failures of the politicians for some of that. Blame the electoral system even more.