Elections don't go as Planned. Huge Upset for Bibi. Lapid may make coalition. Netanyahu will try to Make Widest Coalition Possible.
These are just some of the headlines from the past 24 hours...
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The elections are over and all the votes (minus the soldiers
and those from prisons) have been counted. So there's a new prime minister,
right? Well, not quite. When it comes to a parliamentary democracy, nothing is
that simple. What with the sheet number of parties, not to mention the fact
that the vote is currently tied between the right and the left, 60/60 (but more
on that later), a much longer process has been set into motion. That is, each
time an election occurs in Israel, it is for a party, and only afterwards can
the real fun begin. Therefore, once all the votes have been tallied, the president,
Shimon Peres will be tasked with selecting the first person to attempt a
coalition. Why, you might ask?
In Israel, politics are not as cut
and dry as they are in the states. For a much better explanation, click here
(
Israeli Embassy explanation). However, for the purposes of this note, just know that
the President must take recommendations from all of the newly elected K’nesset
members (the number of seats each party gets is directly correlated with the
percentage of votes they receive in the election – hence voting for a party,
not a candidate) as to who they want to be tasked with creating the next
coalition. Then, the fun begins. That individual (along with everyone else in
the K’nesset must work to make a coalition of a simple majority, or more than
61 seats. The more center the coalition, the stronger it seems to be.
Herein
lies the problem. The K’nesset currently sits with 60 seats in the center-left
block (including Arab parties who will not necessarily or ever join a
coalition) and 60 in the right block (with the religious parties who are much
more center than right and would even potentially join a center-left
coalition). (Click
here to get a good representation of Haaretz's mocking image of the parties and
here for an article with visual representations of what the different options are for coalitions and what they entail). So basically, there is a draw and only God know what the results
will be (or Bibi if he has already finagled a pretty-little Yesh Atid/Habayit
haYehudi coalition to go along with Likud Beiteinu). The fun thing is, we don’t
know. There will be 21 days during which everyone talks and negotiates, trying
to figure out if they are willing to compromise (will the left ditch the
settlement issue they so desperately want settled in favor of joining a
centerist government and attention paid to education/housing demands? Will the
right loosen its super-strength hold on security and allocate some of the
security money towards education and housing?). With all of these questions, I
look forward to following twitter, ynetnew.com, haaretz.com, and jpost.com.
The
real question that I’m asking myself, since when did I develop an interest in
politics? Honestly, I’m not sure if the interest comes from politics, or from
Israel. The fact that I am living here, surrounded by people who really do love
politics and understand them, means I am truly surrounded by the information.
We were getting it in class, in the news, in the papers, and from friends and
family. The long and short of it was, how could I not feel the excitement (a
war, an election, possibly a failing coalition…) and therefore the desire to be
involved was born.
On
election day, we were sent in groups of three or four to different cities
around Israel. My group went to Rishon L’tzion, the fourth largest city in
Israel and one of the first settlements in the 1880’s. Getting off the bus, we
immediately noticed how warm it was (higher than 70 degrees in January!) and
how empty the town seemed to be. Talking to people at this time of morning,
around 8:30, was easy, because no one else was around and people were still in
good moods due to the morning. The streets were basically empty and we got a
great idea of what the city (and Jerusalem, before we left) would look like if
the apocolypse came but everything remained in tact (or what would happen on
Shabbat).
We walked down the streets, talking
to people, trying to figure out the political climate of the area. After a few
people, we finally got directions to a few schools and went down to check them
out. Not only had we actually found schools, we were able to go in and see the
polling booth (but we couldn’t take pictures). As we were already there, I
asked questions about how the voting actually worked, who voted when, why
certain people voted at certain schools, why there were four people sitting in
one room, etc. They loved the questions, because it meant a break in the
monotony of the day, and we enjoyed getting our questions answered and learning
about the elections as they were happening.
Speaking
in Hebrew, and truly understanding what was going on was great! I had the
opportunity to talk to people, ask them their opinions on the political
spectrum, and get a variety of answers, all without the pressure of speaking
correctly. The best part of it was that many or most of them didn’t speak
English, so I had to communicate in Hebrew. Although obvious that I am not a
great Hebrew speaker, everyone we talked to remained patient and understood me.
My
all time favorite person to whom we spoke was an old man, probably about 85. I
approached him because we were looking for a school to find polling places, but
he didn’t have any information and started to send us away. I wasn’t letting
him off that easily and so started asking about who he had voted for and why.
He voted for Shelly, well, for Likud, because he had “always voted for them.”
But the story he then told me afterwards (the entire 4:30 minute saga) was
about how he had served in every war since the founding of the country, having
come here from Poland despite rabbis giving money to go everywhere else. Not
only that, but he has a vendetta against the religious, who “study Talmud all
day and get the same amount of money I do, maybe 100 nis less, and for what,
studying Torah? They don’t deserve it. We need to make this country more
reasonable.” As he spoke, he kept stepping closer and closer to me, and became
increasingly more unsure that we were understanding. At some point, I was done
listening and smelling his breath, so excused us and moved on.
There
were two other pretty interesting ones. One was a woman who said she wasn’t
voting because none of the candidates had anything important that she needed.
And besides, they weren’t going to do anything for her anyway (or so she
thought). Another person told me he wanted Yair Lapid because he would work with
Bibi from within, making the changes that actually need to be made. He would
make sure Bibi focuses on the important issues and truly gets things like
education and housing taken care of. Lastly, a young man said he had voted for
Yair Lapid because Lapid was going to get this specific guy appointed as
minister of sport, and that was what really mattered.
We
stopped for lunch, so we could transfer all our videos to one place and start
making the movie we were required to make as part of our assignment for the day
(in fact, that was the only reason we were allowed into the polling place, by
telling them this was required homework) (To watch the video
click here). At the table next to us was a young
religious couple with their infant. I played with him, and of course started
talking to the couple. After explaining what our purpose in Rishon was, I asked
for whom they had cast their vote. The woman said her husband had voted for
HaBayit HaYehudi (I don’t know why…he just did) and she had voted for Shas (“Because
that’s who I always vote for…”). This country sometimes doesn’t make sense.
All
I can say is, I’m not necessarily sure I know who I would have voted for, I
just know I wouldn’t have been a gung-ho party supporter.
