10 | OCTOBER 6 • 2022 

essay

Israel’s Fifth Election in Four Years ... Why?
N

ew elections are called for in 
Israel for Nov. 1. After a record 
five national elections in four 
years, let’s delve into how the Israeli 
electoral system (over) works.
The system of 
governance in Israel is a 
parliamentary democracy, 
where the prime minister 
is the head of a multi-
party government. The 
Knesset (parliament) 
is Israel’s house of 
representatives, the body 
with sole legislative power. Israel 
also has a president, a predominately 
ceremonial position, who is elected 
by the Knesset for a single seven-year 
term. The current president is Yitzhak 
Herzog.
 All Israeli citizens over age 18, 
present in Israel on election day, are 
entitled to vote for a party (not an 
individual) at the local voting booth. 
Israelis abroad do not have the option 
to send in an absentee ballot (with 
exceptions for diplomats, emissaries, 
sailors and soldiers). Elections are held 
every four years unless the government 
falls. The last election was in March 
2021 with a 67% voter turnout.
Unlike the U.S. electoral system, 
the Israeli model is both general 
and proportional. It is general in 
that Israel is one electoral district 
or single constituency and all votes 
are counted together. The election is 
proportionate because a party receives 
the same percentage of the seats in the 
Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) as their 
percentage of total votes.
To be represented in the Knesset, a 
party must receive at least three seats or 
3.25% of the vote. In the 2021 election, 
there were 38 parties represented at 
the polls, of which only 13 reached the 
minimum three seats or more. In order 
to have a majority in the Knesset, a 

party needs 61 of the total 120 seats. As 
no party in recent decades has received 
the minimum 61 seat majority, the 
leader of the party with the highest 
number of seats is invited by the 
president to try to form a government 
by creating a coalition combining 
a number of parties. Forming a 
coalition involves intense, high-stakes 
negotiations where the leading party 
will agree to accommodate certain 
demands from the other parties to get 
them to join the coalition. 
In March 2021, the party that won 
the most was the Likud party led by 
Binyamin Netanyahu, receiving 24% 
of the vote or 30 of the 120 seats (24% 
of the seats). With the Likud’s leading 
30 seats, Netanyahu was given the first 
chance. After a month of trying to form 
a coalition, Netanyahu was unsuccessful 
in forming a block of at least 61 seats, 
so President Rivlin assigned Yair Lapid, 
head of the Yesh Atid party, with the 
next highest number of seats (17) to 
attempt to form a coalition.
By June, a coalition was formed 
with eight parties, ranging from the 
nationalist right to the Arab left with no 
representation from the majority Likud 
party. One of the major conditions of 

the coalition was that Lapid would split 
the premiership with the Yemina Party’s 
Naftali Bennet, with Bennet serving the 
first two years and Lapid serving the 
last two. 
Due to numerous crises and unruly 
members defecting from the coalition, 
the government was dissolved on June 
20, 2022. The agreement for alternating 
prime ministers was honored, and on 
July 1, Bennet stepped down and Lapid 
became Israel’s 14th prime minister.
Elections are set for Tuesday, Nov. 1. 
Currently, parties are holding primaries, 
reorganizing and reinventing them-
selves. Just a couple of weeks ago, a new 
party was created headed by the cur-
rent Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, 
known as the National Unity Party.
Despite enjoying a public holiday on 
Election Day, many Israelis are ready to 
welcome functioning, healthy coalitions 
and a government that reaches term. Let 
us hope that November 2022 puts and 
end to a global record of elections. 

Naomi Miller is director of Israel Partnerships at the 

Michigan Israel Business Accelerator and the director 

of Missions and Exchanges at the Jewish Federation 

of Metro Detroit. This essay is reprinted from the 

MIBA.

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Naomi Miller

