Elections Are Coming!

This Tuesday is a special holiday in Israel. It is a rare holiday. It is also the only one dependent on the stability of the government, so it sometimes comes around more often than its expected once-every-four-years. I am talking about Chag HaBechirot: Election Holiday.

 

Having made aliyah in 2008, we were here for the elections that took place in 2009. So this Tuesday marks my second time voting in the Israeli elections. As an election veteran, I thought I would share some of the election lessons I have gleaned:

 

As my brother-in-law so astutely noted, “Elections are the closest thing we have to Thanksgiving.” In that election day is a vacation day without the obligations/restrictions of the Jewish holidays. (No offense, Holidays, kisses to you all, but you are NOT a vacation. I think we can agree on that). Businesses and schools are closed, and after you observe the mitzvah of the day (voting) you are free to engage in whatever vacation-related activities you deem appropriate: TV watching, hiking, getting together with friends, sleeping, all of the above… Israelis are shocked that in America, Super Tuesday is business as usual. They have been making plans for their Day Off for, well, at least a few days. Let’s not get carried away. Israelis are not, on a whole, big on the advanced planning.

As it is supposed to be a gloriously mild winter day, my family is planning a desert hike, something we never get to do during our summer vacation, because good lord, it gets HOT here.

 

FYI: Each party has a list of the people who run the party. There are 120 seats in Knesset. Parties win mandates/seats. If a party wins 15 mandates, the first 15 people on their list get a seat in Knesset. Biggest winner = their #1 becomes PM. No one wins 61 seats on their own. So reigning party has to form coalition with smaller parties to gain majority. Smaller parties, therefore, can have disproportionate influence, if the government needs them to form a coalition. Of course, parties have demands: I’ll join your coalition but I want housing/interior/defense portfolio. (Ha! Did it in 98!)

 

You cannot vote by absentee ballot. You need to be here, in person, to do the deed. This is something my parents, who made aliyah last year and as such are election newbies, found out the hard way. They planned a vacation abroad this week, and their political activism (in the form of joining a party and hanging a sign from their balcony) will be all for naught.

 

To vote: Walk into the voting booth, aka, your child’s classroom at school. Pick up the piece of paper emblazed with the acronym of the party of your choice. Fold it. Drop it in a box. Reread Lesson #1 if you’re unsure what to do next.

 

In Israel, there are literally dozens of political parties vying for your vote. In fact, they willpersonally record a message to call and ask you for your vote! Sometimes at six in the morning! That really shows their get-up-and-go attitude! Right? Right???

In addition, with so many parties, the campaigns really need to be targeted, to grab your attention using a few well-chosen words. So, for example, billboards look like this:

This discussion is similar to the discussion surrounding voting for the Independent candidate in American elections. But with so very many small parties, many of them standing on a single-issue platform, the discussion becomes more intense. Should you only vote for the “big parties” who have a chance of building the government? Should you vote for the parties that have a very small chance of garnering the necessary two percent of the vote needed for seats? If they don’t cross the threshold, have you essentially wasted your vote? Or, is your vote the one that pushes them over the edge and lands them the necessary seats? If so, it’s possible they could become players in the coalition and push forward their agenda. Decisions, decisions.

 

Of course, we all want the government to be stable, to work together, to find answers on the pressing issues in our society: economy, religious vs. secular nature of the state, peace with Palestinians, security, etc. However, there is a downside to a stable, functional government: We have to wait four whole years till our next Day Off!

 

Further reading:

This great article explaining the election process and  candidates on Times of Israel.

A short, succinct summary from Reuters.

Election Compass (in English): Find out which party is most closely aligned with your beliefs.

JVO’s own discussion on whether it is a mitzvah to vote.