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MARCH 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
here will not be a fifth election.” This was the adamant claim of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu during a recent interview with Channel 13’s Ayala Hasson. Netanyahu asserted that this time around, the elections would result in a definitive victory and a stable coalition. The longtime premier said the confidence was based on internal polls conducted by his own Likud party. According to a senior Likud official, the party’s polls ask respondents how sure they are that they will vote at all and how resolute they are about backing their party of choice. The surveys found that Netanyahu’s supporters are firm. In contrast, claimed Netanyahu, those aligned with his rivals’ parties, Naftali Bennett’s Yamina and New Hope headed by former confidant Gideon Saar, were much less certain about their vote. Yes, uncertainty has been the name of the game in Israeli politics, which
Fourth – and Final? has seen the most volatile two years in its history, pandemic chaos notwithstanding. The Prime Minister’s remarks were almost certainly in response to comments made by his political rival Benny Gantz who had told an interviewer two days earlier that the risk of yet another election was high. It is well within Netanyahu’s interests to quell those fears. The prospect of the upcoming March 23rd vote being for naught could sap his supporters’ enthusiasm and keep them home on election day. News outlets have been speaking for months about the so-called “election fatigue” being experienced by the general population. Israel’s Basic Law requires elections to take place every four years – on a Tuesday in the Hebrew month of Cheshvan to be precise. But this orderly procedure has not been the way things actually play out. The instability of government coalitions has led to much more frequent voting. Three months ago,
Why Netanyahu Will Reign After Yet Another Election BY SHAMMAI SISKIND
the Jerusalem-based Israel Democracy Institute published a report showing how Israel conducts far more elections than other Western democracies, averaging one round every 2.3 years, compared to other countries with a gap of three or more between polls. March 23 will mark election number four in a two-year period. For many, the repetitive nature of the stalemate is getting a bit ridiculous. One online commentator recently quipped: “Do I have to bring my ID with me to vote next week, or will they remember me from last time?” But for all the talk of being worn out from elec-
tions, it seems most Israelis are still game. In a recent poll by media outlet Israel Hayom, a whopping sixty-two percent of those polled stated they were definitely planning to vote. Another twenty percent said there was a high likelihood they would participate. With three-fifths of voter turnout, it is not lack of participation that will influence the outcome. In fact, just the opposite seems to be the case.
Mapping the Field Unique to this round of elections is the ever-mounting risk of a peculiar phenomenon that can have a drastic impact on who
will be occupying the next Knesset. This electoral effect, known as vote splitting, comes about when the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates and increases the probability of victory for those candidates’ opposition. This type of political strategizing tends to be more common to a “winner-takes-all” type election, namely one in which the ticket with the most votes wins. In such an arrangement, the disbursement of total votes is essentially irrelevant. All that a given candidate is concerned with is grabbing more votes
