20 Friday, July 20, 1984 .

a

How many people are eligible to
vote on Monday, July 23 in the
election for the Eleventh Knesset? -
A TOTAL of 2,600;004 Israeli
citizens are eligible.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS'

•

ow It wor k s

ASHER WALLFISH answers
How do these figures compare with
those for the election in May 1981 for •
the Tenth Knesset?
THERE WAS a total of 2,490,140
eligible voters, of whom 247,300 were
non-JeWS:
•
.
•
' What electoral system is used and
what is the purpose behind it?
Israel does not have constituency-
type elections, where the voters elect
deputies directly representing their
districts. It has proportional repre-
sentation, giving each party the par-
liamentary power reflected by, its
actual votes nationwide. Its purpose
is to ensure that each viewpoint,
ideology and group can seek and
obtain some share of parliamentary
power without being overWhelmed,
as happens under the constituency
The Knesset building In Jerusalem.
system.
SINCE ONE party has never had a
Does Israel's propbrtional -repre-
clear majority, and will probably
sentation system produce a ckar eke-
never have one. as long as the prop-
total result?
ortional representation system
THE SYSTEM has never permitted
obtains, all Israel's governments
one party to emerge with a clear
have been coalitions: A large party
majority-It has produced in the past
persuades one or more smaller par-
a large -number of splinter parties,
ties to join up with it, in ararliamen-
and two major blocs.
tary and/or governmental part-
What are the obstacles to the
nership, by promising to accept part
smooth formation of a government
of their programme, and pass legisla-
after an election?
tion which their voters demand.• •

THE THINKING about Israel's
small parties is usually confused by
the widely held allegiance to two
unexamined and contradictory para-
digms. To some, small parties have a
"nuisance" value. According to this
paradigm, they play a negative role
in coalition politics, pursue a narrow
sectarian good at the expense of the
public welfare, and create : perma-
nent instability in the system.
The second paradigm pictures
small parties as the last stand of the
idealisms struggling for hegemony in
Israel; these idealisms are, in the
form of the small parties, undiluted
by the decades of compromise and
stammering of the large parties.
According to this paradigm, a small
party introduces into political life the
pure idea, a welcome relief from the
power for power's sake ethos of the
large parties.
The picture is made even more
complex by the number of elections
taking place, all at the same time.
There is one election for the reli
gious voters, asked to choose be-,
tween four competing lists. (Of
course, many religious voters will
not support the religious parties but
rather the secular parties.)
There is an election in the Arab
sector, where there is a fight essen-
tially between Labour, Rakah and
Weizman's Yahad. •
There is an election among the
doves, between Labour, the
Citizen's Rights Movement, Shinui
and Rakah; and among the hawks,
between Likud, Tehiya and
Morasha.
Finally, there is the main event,
primarily between Labour, Likud,
Yahad,•and to a lesser extent Tami
and Shinui over the largest con-
stituency still ' up for grabs: the several
hundred thousand voters termed
"disappointed Likud voters."

THIS GROUP is central because its
vote will decide the main question:
which of the two large blocs Labour
or Likud, will lead the next coalition
government. Only Labour and
Likud concentrate a mass of support

hreshbld." are therefore
•worthless.

some oftenasked questions about the electoral system.

(Radovan)

Does the coalition have to he
headed by the party which emerges
with the highest number of man-
dates?
TATS USUALLY happens, but it is
not essential. The important ques-
tioh is: . which party can persuade
enough other parties to hand
together with' t in a coalition, with
enough- votes to ensure that its leg-
islation is passed in the Knesset by a
majority, and enough votes to he

sure of the confidence of the Knes-
set.

Thanks to proportional repre-
sentation, does every single vote
-count, no matter which list it is cast

for?
NO. ANY LIST which does not 'get
at least I pet' cent of the valid votes
cast throughout the country is dis-
qualified. All the votes cast for such
a list, which has not crossed the

alition arithmetic

from enough heterogenous consti-
tuencies to generate a force suffi-.
cient to attract, and hold, the volatile
combination of small parties neces-
sary to gain a stable majority.
But if the two large parties are
competing for the dominant role in
the Knesset the smaller parties are
struggling merely to get into the
Knesset.

THERE ARE several ways to relate
to the small parties. Many, including
Lova Eliav's, Yigal Hurvitz's and
Mordechai Ben-Porat's lists, will
possibly not get enough votes to
qualify for a seat. A vote for them is
therefore in danger of being lost
altogether. Those who will pass the
one per cent minimum fall into
several basic categories.
There are those parties, like
Tehiya-Tzomet and Rabbi Haim
Druckman's Morasha, which can
participate only in a Likud-led coali-
tion.
There are those, like Shinui and
Shulamit Aloni's Citizen Rights

HERE ARE some of the most
important of the 27 lists running,
their heads, and the number of rep-
resentatives (MKs) in the 10th Knes - .
set.
LIKUD - Chief group in ruling
coalition, includes right-wing-
nationalist Herut and right-of-centre
Liberal Party. Head: Yitzhak Sha-
mir. 46 MKs. • .
LABOUR ALIGNMENT . - Main
oppOsition grodp. Labour Party and
left-wing Mapani. Head: Shimon
Peres, 49 MKs.
NATIONAL RELIGIOUS PAR-
TY (NRP) Moderate Orthodox
Member of present coalition. Yosef
Burg. S MKs.
AGUDAT. YISRAEL - Extreme
Orthodox memebr of coalition.
Avraharn Shapira. 4 MKs. •

'

David Twersky

Movement, which can participate
only in a Labour-led coalition.
Neither of these two groups has
the option of toppling one coalition
and linking up to another in the
making. They will either sit in a
government coalition led by the
large bloc with whom they are in
basic sympathy, or they will sit in the
opposition.
Then there are the centre parties-
the centre being an elusive and ex-
ceedingly shifty point in the middle
of the several continua which run
through Israeli political life. One
may be in the centre on the foreign
policy axis, but on the right on the
economic axis; or in the middle on
the religious-secular axis, and on the
left in terms of foreign policy.
The common characteristic of
these parties is that all have the
potential of joining up with either
Labour or Likud coalitions after the

THE RUNNERS

elections. This group includes
Yahad, Tami and the National Reli-
gious Party.
The ultra-Orthodox Agudat
Israel, which would like to have a
"Labour option," would in fact find
fitting into a Labour coalition very
difficult. Aguda's extreme demands,
as in the case of the 'Who is a Jew'
issue as well as other matters, clash
not only with the commitments of
potential Labour coalition partners
like Shinui and the CRM but with
most of the Labour Alignment itself.
The communist party Rakah is
ruled out as a participant in a Labour
government. But it will automatical-
ly oppose a Likud coalition, and may
be persuaded to abstain from oppos-
ing a Labour government in votes of
no confidence.
The major "trouble makers"
among the small parties, therefore,
are .those in the centre, who are
capable of exhorting exorbitant
prices in return for their support
precisely because they are unafraid
of the •alternative and can go either
way.

.

CITIZENS RIGHTS - Left-of-
centre. In opposition. Shulamit Alo-•
ni. I MK.
SHINUI - Liberal opposition.
Amon Rubinstein. 2 MKs.
YAI-IAb - Liberal centrist. Ezer
Weizman• New list.

MORASHA - Nationalist break-
away of NRP, plus Agudat Yisrael
workers party. In coalition. Haim
Druckman. 1 MK.
TAMI - In coalition. Sephardi
OMETZ - Liberal rightist. In coali-
moderate-Orthodox. Aharon Abu-
Yigael Hurvitz. 1 MK.
hatzeira. 3 MKs.
ZIONIST RENEWAL.- Ethnic
SEPHARDI TORAH GUAR-
Sephardi. In coalition. Mordechai.
DIANS (Shas). Ethnic offshoot of
Ben-Porat. I MK.
Agudat Yisrael. Yitzhak Perctz.
New list.
LOVA ELIAV - Leftist labour.
New list. -
HATEHIYA/TSOMET - In coali-
tion. Right-wing.. • nationalist,
KACH - Extreme rightist national-
Orthodox-secular. Yuval Neeman.
ist Orthodox. Meir Kahane. New list.
•MKs.
RAKAII - Communist Party and
PROGRESSIVE PEACE LIST -
Leftist non-Zionist. New list Arab-
Arab nationalist and other allies. In
- Jewish. Mohammed Miari.
opposition. Meir Wilier. 4 MKs.

How are the rest of the valid votes
which were cast for those lists passing
the "threshold," . translated into
Knesset seats?
THE TOTAL number of votes cast
for all those lists which qualify, is
then divided by 12(1 (the numbers of
seats in the Knesset).
This simple arithmetical exercise
produces a whole number, called the
"quotient per seat" and also a re-
mainder.
If a theoretical 2,400,500 citizens
cast votes for lists which qualify, the .
quotient per seat would work out at
. 20,004. The remainder is always
ignored in this calculation.
As the , total vote increases, the
quotient per seat increases too.

What is the next stage in allocating
.
the seats?
THE NUMBER of seats won by
each list, is divided by the quotient
per seat, calculated previously. A list
which got 40,4(X) votes would thus
get two seats, and it would have a
surplus of 392 votes left over.

Is this surplus of any value?
IN SOME cases, yes. Parties which
made prior • and registered agree-
ments, to pool their surplus votes,
can transfer these at the time the
votes are being divided, so that one
of them gets an extra seat.

IT IS THESE parties which intro-
duce the irritating element of insta-
bility into the political situation, and
one musn't blame Tehiya or the
CRM, standard bearers of the pure
idea as they are, for the sins of the
centre.
If the centre parties are post-
election villains they are also pre-
election heroes: they are the last to
be attacked during the campaign,
precisely because neither of the big
blocs wants to burn coalition bridges
before the election they may have to
cross the day after. ,
In terms of the second paradigm,
many voters are attracted to the
small party of their choice because
the package of concerns most impor-
tant to them is addressed by that
party with candour and without the
evasive ambiguity which characte-
rizes the large parties. But if the
small parties' appealing as they do to
a compact and heterogenous consti-
tuency, have the gift of clarity, they
are also cursed with reciting their
lines to the front rows of an other-
wise empty theatre.
Labour and Likud are going for
broke, for the whole pie, and have to
Consider various, and often conflict-
ing, considerations. They must tone
some things down, and highlight
other things that attract new voters.
A large party walks a tightrope
strung between two poles: the ver-
sion of itself in which it most fervent-
ly believes, and the version of itself it
can persuade the largest section of
the public to support. We judge
them by their success in winning .
elections; but• no less so on their
ability to remain loyal to their own
best self.
Following the elections, the
Likud, along with the -satellite par-
ties to its right, will try to attract
Yahad, the NRP, Tami and the
Aguda back into a coalition, the new
Knesset mathematics allowing.
Labour, with Shinui and the
CRM, and unopposed by the com-
munists, will woo Yahad and Tami -
and perhaps the Liberal wing of the
Likud.

